It's raining wet water.

As it's currently bucketing down and has been for days, there's not an awful lot I can get on with. I want to do stuff on the outside of the bus and need to do that before I can do any of the small stuff on the inside - mainly because I'm storing the stuff for the outside, inside so there's no space.

Meanwhile somebody asked about what kind of fridge I use. The answer is (aside from the tiny and elderly dorm fridge that I was given), I don't do fridges. None of my 120v stuff runs when I'm not plugged in so I just don't have much 120v stuff. In fact I'm even wondering whether I should keep the 120v stuff that I have.

Let's look at a fridge as an example. Taking a standard fridge that uses about 3A, that will use over a day, 72AH of power. Assuming you're using lead-acid batteries and an inverter (which eats up an extra 10%) then you're going to need 160AH of battery just to power the fridge. That means two 100AH batteries at $100 approx each.

Now let's look at power generation for that fridge. Assuming a perfectly sunny day for about 8 hours then that 72AH of power is going to be 864AH. That in turn will need at least one 100W solar panel and preferably two (at $100 each). I forgot that the inverter would cost about $100 too. Then for cloudy days a generator would be needed. Harbor Freight's $100 generator produces 800W or rather 600W continuous or about 5A. That's enough to power the fridge on a dark day but it would have to run for 36 hours continuously in order to recharge the batteries and power the fridge.

So, what would the cost of a fridge be. Well, assuming its a standard $100 dorm fridge, that's...
$100 for the fridge

$200 for solar panels

$200 for batteries

$100 for the inverter

$100 for the generator

plus gas for the generator.

Grand total less the gas is $700. If one bought a $20 cooler and a bag of ice, twice a week at $5 then over a year that would be $260 in ice plus a $20 cooler. It would thus be three years before the solar stuff even paid for itself.

A lot of people plan to live full-time in their busses. This is nonsense thinking. Certainly one might manage to full time for a few weeks, months or even years if there's nothing else available but most people like somewhere to call home. Living homeless in a bus is not living in a home. It's at best a mobile homeless shelter. It's not sustainable in the long term for most people. There are breakdowns, traffic accidents, medical emergencies etc.

So, most people, using their bus conversion sensibly as a holiday vehicle or emergency accommodation will not be using refrigeration constantly for 3 years non stop. Indeed, most campers and glampers will not use their expensive motorhomes or bus conversions for more than a few weeks or maybe months a year. Thus that fridge and the stuff to power it will never ever pay for itself.

A lot of people really do need a reality check with their purchases. I see this all the time. I have had my bus conversion for 7 years. I have been on one trip in it. I've been working on it for the rest of the time doing various upgrades and improvements. The current list of improvements to be completed...

1. Finish replacing the brake lines.

2. Redo the right-wiper mount.

3. Finish adjusting the battery mount and install the second lithium battery.

4. Test a new lower-power extraction fan to see whether I could replace my higher power fans with something lower power.

5. Redo the paintwork

6. Install a couple of 10W flexible solar panels on the roof, using glue, not rivets. If possible the same glue they use to glue vehicle windows in place.

7. Fix the upper reversing camera but include a power input for the roof solar panels.

8. Replace the clearance lights since they're failing one by one.

9. Experiment with LED bulbs for the turn and brake lights

10. switch over the internal lighting to BA15. I've already switched the bathroom over and have a unit on the way for the back closet.

11. Sheet over the unused windows and add bars over all the others.

Given the fact the wonderful elastometric paint seems to be flying off the roof and taking the white paint with it while leaving the grey that I put down originally, I'm just going to paint the whole bus white and ignore this elastometric stuff as it doesn't seem worth the time of day. Oh yes... and I'm not using Rustoleum paint any more either. It doesn't seem to want to stick to anything, even itself.