Bus Build Expense Spreadsheet: How Much Does it Cost?

[Juicifer]

Hey guys I've recently finished my second bus conversion. This time for a "client," really it was friends of ours that were hoping to live full time in a bus and save on expensive Seattle rent and add a little adventure to their lives! Anyways this time I took a slightly more professional approach and we documented more or less every dollar that we spent.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vkmvnCOJNtsGBzphWuBN4SP7hWyKwizSym-490tcv0U/edit?usp=sharing

I'm a big fan of the "All Electric Skoolie" and so you'll see that we went big with the solar with 3200 watts and a 10KWH+ Lithium battery bank. I also documented 900 hours of real labor (not trips to the store or time spent researching)!

I would have found something like this really helpful while I was building so I'm sharing it with you. Let me know if you think there's ways I can improve it and if you find it helpful. It's a work in progress. Thanks!

BTW here's a photo of the bus:

 

[Tejon7]

This spreadsheet would have made my life so much easier two years ago You put a lot of time and energy into this, and I appreciate your willingness to share it. Thanks!

I've seen a few of your build videos for that bus. Nice work!

 

[Juicifer]

This spreadsheet would have made my life so much easier two years ago You put a lot of time and energy into this, and I appreciate your willingness to share it. Thanks!

I've seen a few of your build videos for that bus. Nice work!

Me too man. Me too. Thanks for watching my videos!

 

[Dbacks2k4]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vkmvnCOJNtsGBzphWuBN4SP7hWyKwizSym-490tcv0U/edit?usp=sharing

Very cool, I'll have to go back and compare this to my anticipated budget and see how far off I am.

Fellow fan of yours on YT here as I get rolling on my build... your Gillig is pretty bad-ass. I learned and got my CDL on mid-to-late 1980s Gillig Phantom city buses... so they still hold a special place in my life!

 

[jordangeek]

Thank you for this! FYI Though, Your total is off by about 1/2 as it is missing the total for the first group of labor and bus costs is missing the total in cell A19. Not sure if that was intentional as that can be considered the "variable" costs.

Either way, this is fantastic and I am going to use this as my budget template, thank you again!

 

[MastersOfSky]

I'd like to add my own costs breakdown to this:

My wife, myself and some hired tradespeople (electrician, gas fitter) built this Skoolie on Vancouver Island, Canada.

Materials include the cost of buying the bus initially ($4000 in my case). Skilled labour means people who are career tradespeople. Semi-skilled labour is someone with a good eye for detail but little construction experience.

Total cost of materials: $43,600

Total cost of materials if we had made no mistakes: $34,350

Total time, skilled labour: 930 hours

Total time, semi-skilled labour: 171 hours

 

[nikitis]

I'm currently on my first build, and total cost so far for 14kw batter, 1920 watts of solar, I've probably spent like 24k so far for everything including drive train repairs, and will end up around 28k. I did most of the repair work myself though. I'd be in the 40k range if I had mechanics work on it. I'm nearly finished with it.