What about now, now that winter has come? Well, I’m sitting in the bus right now, feeling quite cosy and warm. I turned my electric fan heater on after plugging the bus into a 20A supply. The temperature inside has risen from 54F to 57F in just a couple of minutes. I could turn the heat up even further but don’t really see much need.
The front door had a split going all the way down the center where somebody had broken it in two breaking in some time or other. It had planks nailed across it to keep it together. The carpets all had nasty looking stains and nothing was particularly clean when I moved in. There were stains on the walls and ceilings. Indeed - that could well have been a hastily cleaned up crime scene and probably was for all I know. There were 2 inch gaps under the front and back doors through which roaches, lizards and spiders came and left at will.
The next door neighbors were pleasant enough as were all my neighbors though I felt the odd one out being the only white face in the area. Needless to say the place was very close to the jail and the first building on the road was a bail bonds office. At no time did I ever feel exceptionally unsafe but on the other hand I never felt exceptionally safe and slept every night with my 9mm pistol under my pillow.
Of course being a slum property I was a little surprised to be asked to pony up a month’s rent in advance as a deposit. I never figured I’d get it back. I just figured it was a greedy grab and typical of slum lords. Consequently it did not surprise me in the least when I cleaned the place and returned the keys that I didn’t get my deposit back. I calculated since I spent 30 months there that my actual rent instead of being $525 was actually $542.50. Not too bad actually. Having said that I’d spent $15K on renting a slum property.
My bus cost me $4200 and the jury is still out on how much the conversion will have cost. I have everything I need to complete the solar and battery setup. I do need to get stuff for the plumbing bit and I might still redo the toilet so that I can simply plumb it into a sewage disposal system at a campsite. I’m still undecided on that one. I gather that if I rented a space at a site then I’d be paying $250 a month. That doesn’t actually seem that bad to be honest. It’s a far cry from $525 a month for a place I didn’t even own!
When I lived in the slum, it was a two storey building. Alas I cannot find a photo of it though one surely exists somewhere. Just a two storey townhouse on a dirt track near a jail in the poor section of town. I believe it was around 500 square feet per floor. Needless to say what with the cockroach problem I didn’t actually use the downstairs for anything. There were three bedrooms upstairs, a huge one and two smaller ones. The two smaller ones I used - one to sleep and one to use as an office/den/day-room. In the cold of winter I ran my little fan heater and kept just that one room warm. My monthly electricity bill was rarely above $25. In the heat of summer I just used a fan.
With the bus though I don’t have heat unless I plug in, I do have cooling provided by my solar powered fans. Not only do they circulate air but they extract the hot air and blow it out the back. I believe I have done a good job with the bus so far. I just need to have a warm day to complete the underbus operations. At the very least that is completing fastening the long cable that goes from front to back and putting the battery compartment into place together with its wiring. Preferably I’d like to add the bedroom wiring which I’m hoping to be able to pass under the bus though other solutions may have to be used due to the proximity of the wheel arch.
In an ideal world I’d then add an instant hot water heater plugged into the main breaker board, mounted under the sink. Then I’d put a dual hot water line with one piece going to the sink and one to the shower. Obviously the underbus piping would need to be lagged. I’d also need to put a faucet on the sink. That doesn’t sound much but is probably a few weekends worth of work and about $200 expenditure.
In my dream world I’d put a flush toilet. How I’m going to work that, I’m really not sure. I’m still in favor of a simple funnel with a trapdoor that adds some kind of splash guard. The flushing can be done with a hose with a pistol jet head like so many kitchen sinks have. For dry camping that could be a simple hand pump gallon water sprayer. The tank sounds like it needs to be specially constructed to fit the space available. I can weld steel with no problem!
Looking at the weather it looks like next weekend might be doable for going under the bus. It should be 66 which means if I’m lucky I can get at least the wiring done and possibly also the battery compartment. I don’t know about doing the bedroom wiring though.
There are pictures I’d have liked to have added but though I could find them on Google Photos using my phone, I could not locate them using my tablet and the web browser. Go figure! Seems to me that Google needs to do some work on linking things. But by the time I finished in the bus for the day, my little fan heater had raised the temperature to a somewhat balmy 63F. That’s bikini weather!
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