As an example of one time when I was unable to use my bus - I'd pulled a muscle in my leg and couldn't even climb the stairs to get into the bus. It was just far too painful to lift my leg that high. Other times I've been just too sick to want to climb onto my 3' high bed.
A bus bathroom is fine - as long as you can empty the toilet and the waste tanks every few days and as long as you can fill the freshwater tanks every few days. Imagine a debilitating illness like a long bout of the 'flu. That would have you laid up for a week or more with no water in your water tanks, full waste tanks and a fairly unhygeinic bus. With a house that has full time water, electricity and flush toilets as well as a good shower, this is not an issue.
There's the little question of emptying waste tanks, taking on board fresh water, cooking fuel etc. Where exactly do you plan to do all that? I can do this where I'm living because I live on shared land where I can dig a hole to bury the content of my waste tanks.
Where, exactly, do you plan to park that bus of yours overnight or when you're at work? If it's not your own land or land that you've rented then you might come back and find the bus gone - hauled off as abandoned or as trespassing. In a public parking lot it's quite likely that somebody will vandalize it or attempt to break in or even steal your home on wheels.
Busses were only ever built to transport people. Once you start living in them, condensation becomes an issue and condensation causes rust as well as mold. Everything including clothing will hold a degree of moisture as ventilation would have to be extreme in order to keep the interior dry. Every time we exhale, we exhale water vapor.
Back in college a friend rented a tiny little garage. It was dry - no leaks but it was damp from the moisture of cooking and breathing. He bathed outside in order to keep the water vapour outside. Even so, he had to wear all his clothes in turn or they would get moldy.
How do you plan to cope with repairs? You can't carry all the tools you want or need in order to fix every problem. That will lead to the annoying situation where you know how to fix the problem but have to pay somebody else to do a poor job because you can't carry the tools,
What about breakdowns? When you break down, where will you stay while your home is being repaired? Most repairshop yards are not secure and the workers will not keep your bus locked. What happens if you blow a steer tire out in the middle of nowhere? Did you know a single tire can weigh 125lbs? In the unlikely event that you'll have a spare on you, you'll need to jack the bus up and change the tire and put the wheel back on unless you manage to change the tire without taking the wheel off.
It's a big vehicle. What experience do you have of driving big vehicles? How about air brakes? Have you certified in air brake use? Can you diagnose and solve air brake problems? What about an air leak? Can you find and fix it? Do you know how to handle a rear tire blowout? What about a front tire blowout? Can you use the mirrors effectively?
Can you maintain a safe braking distance? Do you know what a safe braking distance is? Do you know how to reverse and that most accidents are reversing accidents? Do you have a partner to help you reverse safely? Do you know how important your partner is for reversing?
I see plenty people removing mirrors because they don't understand their use. It ends up with people driving almost blind.
What about pets and families? Children and animals have plenty accidents. Neither is particularly known for following directions. Pets need plenty space. Dogs need a lot of walking and exercise. Cats need about the same exercise too. In fact I'd be rather worried about the welfare of pets and animals couped up in small spaces. Let's face it, even a 40 foot bus is really something like 36 feet inside and about 6 feet wide so it's a 216 square foot dwelling. That's less than a single floor on most townhouses. In fact that's about the size of most people's lounges.
If you're single and sick, can you cope? What about if you're not single and have dependents and you're sick? Can you cope? What if you're all sick? Can you cope? Now can you cope without family or friends nearby?
Do you have answers for all these points or have you swallowed the baloney, hook, line and sinker that everybody can live in a bus? The truth is it's not a mainstream solution. Most people with bus lifestyles have secrets they don't tell such as:
- family in various places
- parcels of land in various places that they own and can live on
- storage lockers in various places where they store stuff they might need.
My big gripe is that too many people are getting oversold on the idea. They're selling and throwing away their lives, spending tens of thousands of dollars on an instantly depreciating asset. Basically people are setting themselves up for financial ruin.
Busses are depreciating assets. What you spend on the conversion does not make the bus any more valuable. A $10,000 conversion does not make a $2,000 bus into a $12,000 bus. It makes it into a $2,000 bus that you've spent $10,000 on. A $12,000 motorhome will be worth $10,000 in a year's time. A $2000 bus with a $10,000 conversion will be worth $2,000 and no more.
Sure - you can play games with paper, giving it a fancy title such as "motorhome". You're not fooling anybody though. As soon as the insurance company sees it's a schoolbus that's been converted, poof - any claim goes out the window. In the insurance industry it's generally seen as close to being fraudulent. Just leave the title as it is and insure as commercial. That way nobody can say anything. The plate inside the bus says "schoolbus". That's the important legal identification of the vehicle. It doesn't matter what alternative purpose the bus is being used for but if it says "school bus" then that's what it is for insurance purposes.
There's plenty to gripe about with the overselling of the school bus conversion idea. In fact, close to me there's a couple of bus big second hand vehicle yards. Both have coach conversions and bus conversions for sale. They're covered in muck on the outside and have been there for years. I have driven past one yard for two years and the two busses have been there all that time. The other yard I have passed every day for 5 years and those busses have been there all that time. All look to have been professionally converted, not converted by hillbilly amateur conversion companies.
When it comes time to sell a schoolbus conversion, it's best to part it out as much as possible and sell the rest to the scrapyard. Nobody is going to pay you $12,000 for a $2,000 bus or however much you paid somebody to convert it. Smell the coffee people, bus conversions are for a select few - not for every wannabe.
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