Two days ago I bought a 20-seater short bus! This will be my full time home once the conversion has progressed far enough.
I'll use this thread to document my process and am happy to hear suggestions.
The plan:
- remove seats
- remove flooring
- remove wall fittings
- remove ceiling fittings
- build framing
- insulate
- build flooring (hard wood), walls (gypsum) & ceiling (wood also?)
As construction is not really something I have spent too much time with so far (built a small garden shed and various furniture) I will need to go in baby steps, and build in some room for mistakes.
For example I'd like to setup an off grid solar system and my plan was to let the cable runs and sockets sit on top of a channel inside the insulated area of the bus. This is to allow for more flexibility for the interior design of the living space. Later on it should not be hard to open the walls and hide the electrical cables should that be desired.
Plumbing will be a similar deal, all done inside the insulated space for easy access and revisions.
My water system will be fairly simple, with a freshwater tank under the bed, a water pump feeding into the sink as well as an inline heater. The sin leads to a gray water tank. As the bus is targeted as a mobile home that will be immobile most of the time, I would also have the ability to hook up to fresh water and electricity from the grid. In a settled scenario I could see the grey water being diverted to a wetland are instead of the tank.
I haven't solved the question of a toilet yet. My favorite solutions are: a porta-potty for it's simplicity or a composting toilet with urine diversion.
Heat will be added during late summer. I am hoping to find a suitable small wood stove for that purpose.
One aspect which I haven't fully figured out is insulation. At this point I am leaning towards a solid foam approach in two layers in 4" which would give me ~R26 all around. I might remove an inch or so of that on the floor just to give myself more headroom. Sadly that does not satisfy the target value of R38+ in the ceiling which is what is recommended for norther Washington & southern BC (I live in Vancouver, CA). Soon I am planning to contact some spray foam contractors and see if I can't get a higher R value in less space.
I tried removing the bolts of one of the seats and after some pulling and pushing I decided to invest in an angle grinder and deal with it, like so many before me have
That's it for now!
Cheers,
fuzzblob