Why I don't post much any more...

This blog never gets many viewers. I think the last post was viewed 3 times in the months between that post and this. 

Today I was reading about somebody who was trying to get rid of their bus because their engine gave out. Well, that's to be expected with a poorly maintained old bus. People just don't have a clue when they start just how much is involved with keeping a bus on the road.

Right now on mine, I have still to finish brake lines. I need to change the engine oil and oil filters as well as the transmission fluid and filters. It has been sitting idle for 4 years and needs maintenance. I still need to work on the roof leaks that have appeared. 

Did I make a mistake in buying an old bus? Yes and no. 

I was in a poor place when I bought the bus - just out of a bad situation. I really needed a decent used RV but couldn't afford one. I looked at step vans and to be quite honest, a step van would have been a far better purchase than an old bus - largely because it's already registered as a van, looks like a van and has no windows. It would also have a flat roof. 

I am very much not sold on solar panels as being the answer to anything. I have a few smaller panels and they do what they are supposed to do. That is all. They are obvious to the onlooker and identify the vehicle as a home. Not great for security.

Insurance is a persistent problem. Nobody wants to insure a school bus as an RV because it's an old school bus and not an RV. Sure - people online will claim they can get great insurance etc. I could sit here and write about the flock of pigs I just saw flying past my window too. The fact is people online will claim all kinds of things without any of them being true. My personal experience, based on walking into insurance agents and sitting down with them while they researched their policies is that they do not cover school bus conversions. They will cover the base vehicle for the cost of a replacement base vehicle but not the contents.

Was it a mistake to buy a bus? Probably. I would have been far better off with a van. Mind, I also needed space and time to downsize my possessions - which the bus gave me. A simple long wheelbase van would have worked - something like a long wheelbase Ford Transit. 

I'm seeing people having major problems trying to offload their converted busses. Some scrapyards are charging people to take them off them. I drive regularly past two converted busses in one secondhand dealership that have been there for the 10 years that I have been passing. I see an unconverted bus that has been languishing for 5 years. The local school district just scraps its busses. I see busses lying in fields too.

I'll keep on with mine for the moment but I'm beginning to wish I'd gone a different route.

The reality of owning a bus conversion:

As my bus has been parked since the brake lines burst, I've not done much with it. It has been safely parked. I did get new tyres put on a year or so back but then got injured at work and had to take last summer off.

Recently I set to, cleaning up the interior - it had become a one-size-fits-all storage shed. Many bus projects had been started but not completed too. Now I have a much clearer idea of what I want.

Forget living in the bus in the summer - it's too hot. It doesn't matter what people claim online about being able to do it. It's just not possible unless you're willing to park it under cover and run an industrial air conditioner.

Forget also living in the bus in the winter - it's too cold. It doesn't matter what people claim online about being able to do it (sounds familiar?) Again it's not possible unless you have heat running constantly. 

Neither the summer nor the winters make the 365 day a year bus life idea that so many dreamers have, possible. One caveat - if you drive to spend the summers in Canada and the winters in Florida then you might be able to do it. That's for somebody that's independently wealthy (in which care why are you using a poor-man's RV) or somebody who is retired.

Going to the bus I have discovered... The white paint on the roof is flaking off. Remember how carefully I went over the whole roof first with a series of wire brushes in my angle grinder and then swept the dust off before wiping down thoroughly with paint thinner before finally painting? Did not seem to do any good whatsoever. It looks like peeling paint is a fact of life for old schoolbusses.

The battery is currently flat and I've been unable to install the solar charger because of wasp nests under the bus. 

There are a couple of new leaks - one where I installed a new marker light. That I'm attempting to fix today. The Dynatron caulk used to seal it had cracked. I tried Bondy putty but  that just made a mess and never cured. I've put construction adhesive on and sprayed it with white paint. I'll see if that cures the leak. The other leak is on the other side of the bus. I'll move the bus before dealing with that.

I came to the conclusion that the microwave and the fridge are both utter wastes of space. I'll remove both. The 120V inlet needs to drop down from a 30A inlet to a 20A inlet. Why have to carry strange cords and adapters when a straightforward ordinary household extension cord will do? With the fridge and microwave gone there's precious little that I need 120v for which is really good. Really and truly I only put 120v in because the fridge came with the vehicle and because somebody had made a hole in the floor for the 120v inlet.

Currently I want to use the countertops inside for electronics etc. I will likely replace the OSB with plywood because I have more money now than when I installed them.

The whole vehicle needs a darned good wash. I'll try to get that done. I did notice that some of the paint is coming off my aluminium window covering. That is unwelcome. That was a special paint and primer spray so clearly it does not matter what kind of paint goes on, it's likely to come off. It looks like a fairly frequent maintenance item. Having said that, the paint is coming off my car too - I didn't paint my car - the factory did.

I acknowledge that when I started with this bus conversion I made an error. I had wanted a step van but they were all sold out when I looked. The bus has been more of a pain in the neck because of all the annoying windows it has. 

Looking back on the effort I have put into this bus, I don't think any of it was worthwhile. Sure - I have a very workable RV but at the end of the day so far I have used it for just one single trip in the 9 years I have owned it. That's 9 years of vehicle tax, 9 years of insurance, an expensive servicing session and some expensive batteries.

When I started, I had no money. I would have been better holding on and looking for a big van like the step van I had looked at initially. That would have given me space and privacy. I discovered I don't need any of the 120v toys that the glampers like. 

I have to say that it has been a fun project. Whether I will get more use out of it, I do not know. The flat batteries are just another problem it has thrown at me as are the leaks and the peeling paint. It's not something I'd feel worth selling as I'd get likely only pennies on the dollar and the next owner would just want to rip everything out and start again anyway because the next owner would likely have been seduced by the glampers on Facebook etc.

I see the arguments for and against using vehicles as accommodation. On the whole the againsts are stronger than the fors. I always saw that. For me, the bus represents emergency accommodation - something I could flee out of a bad situation in. It also represents something I can move onto land and live in while I build a cabin or whatever. It never was an end goal in itself. It was always a step on the road.

Many people talk about "boondocking" which is a fancy word for "trespassing" or "squatting".  That comes together with evictions, fines, police action and returning to find your "home" has been towed away and or scrapped as well - with all your stuff either in it or dumped out on the ground where your vehicle used to be.

While many people might get away with abusing the goodwill of businesses by squatting overnight in their parking lots, it's really no different from somebody arriving uninvited to set up a tent on your lawn, promising to be gone by morning.

Would I do this again? Well, given the circumstances I was in when I started, yes I probably would but circumstances were pretty dire then. I was living in rented accommodation. I was paying rent and buying food. My job had ended when the company had folded. My unemployment had run out 6 months before I got a part time job that didn't pay the rent or anything much. I was having to fund my life from my savings. I did that for a couple of years. Now i'm in a better situation (but not much better). Had I not spent the money on the bus and not spent the money converting it, I'd probably have about $20,000 more, in the bank. If I sold the bus - who knows how much I'd get because I'd be absolutely honest about it. It's a good vehicle. The paint will keep needing attention. As far as I can tell, it doesn't matter how well you insulate a vehicle, you're always going to be paying out the nose for heating or cooling. Solar just won't cut it.

I remember my dad telling me 5 years ago that  the bus was a millstone around my neck. He was right. I didn't want to see it like that. It was a case of I'd been putting all the effort into it to make it good - blood, sweat, tears and money. Selling it was his recommendation. That's probably what I should have done in hindsight and before I got too financially involved in it. I'd have been probably better buying a real RV - even an elderly one - that would have been used more.

Right now I'm working on the bits that need working on. I found the roof leak. It seems that the Dynatron caulk has cracked. It's supposed to be a seam sealant. When is it actually going to seal something? I'll have to get up there with my wire brush, brush it all out, treat the rust, reseal and repaint. The paint is cracking pretty thoroughly and when I scrape the flaked white paint up, the primer seems just to have vanished yet here it was (May 15, 2021 or 2 years ago) https://schoolbushome.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-roof-is-primed.html. The way the primer layer has just vanished is bizarre.

Yes, I'm feeling a tad jaded by this constant maintenance and the fact that a bus conversion really isn't much different from any other kind of camper. The nutjobs all like to go on about how to fiddle insurance to get coverage in a fraudulent manner. They also like to go on about how you need this, that and the other. Nobody ever posts the truth about bus conversions. All you see is the glitz and glamour. 

There are even more nutjobs that will hate me for posting the truth or accuse me of various things because my views do not align with their rose-tinted view of the world. Well, I don't care.