Plastic planks and other thoughts.

Now the shower base is not sitting in the drivers seat, its possible to see the seat! There's stuff left to move before I can drive it though.

Speaking of driving, a letter arrived from my insurance company reminding me my bus insurance is due in September. The problem is that it was sent to my old address. I have no idea how many times I will have to tell Progressive that I've changed address. I have told their head office, adjusted it on their online system, told their local agent and yet they persistently get it wrong. Perhaps I'll change insurance companies?

Meanwhile, I cut up my remaining plastic plank to use for two of the four sides of my shower base. I need to make the base solid enough to hold the shower pan in place. The idea is to use plastic planks and simply glue them together and glue them to the floor.

As the plank is not wide enough at 7 inches, I had to cut it into 7.5 inch sections to glue together to make a 7.5 inch wide section. I thought after that since I need more plastic plank to complete the mount, it might be better to buy a treated wood plank. If it rots then I can replace it but that might be a long way in the future. PVC planking is most definitely not cheap! Wood, on the other hand, is far less expensive!

I glued almost 3 feet of plastic plank together. At 7 inches wide, that's about 28 inches. I have reservations about the strength of the glue. Indeed, I'm giving serious consideration to simply using wood planking, painting it and hoping for the best. The plastic wasn't wasted as it was all offcut anyway.

I might pick up wood plank tomorrow, together with some 30A cable, 15A cable and some conduit. It's time to get the electrics completed so I can get my bus registered as a motorhome. The original idea had been to have 50A cable but it seems hard to obtain. I can always change cables later!

Interestingly, Eric in Canada has found that there are a lot of homes now being registered with no electricity. http://lesguis.com/wp/?p=4927 That's interesting and makes me wonder how much of an issue my incomplete plumbing and electrical system will be in terms of reregistration.

Final coat!

Doesn't it look lovely? That's the final coat of paint on my dinette countertop. After this, its touch up only.

Of the major construction, things remaining to be done:
1. Erect the closet chain.
2. Add the shower base mount.

After this, its plumbing and electrics.

Speaking of electrics, last night when I couldn't sleep, I looked up Peltier coolers. It's a very neat technology that can cool up to 20c below ambient temperature. It's horribly inefficient but holds promise. For a small, 1.5 cubic foot fridge, its twice as inefficient as a dorm model. The Peltier units are neat though because they can be installed into just about anything.

Again, last night, I looked up energy usage of common appliances. Now I know why with Eric's massive 1600 watts of solar and wind power, running a 1200 watt coffee maker is such an achievement.

A lifestyle change toward low power usage is in order unless I want to haul out a generator every time I run the microwave! Clearly I need to be thinking more in terms of non intensively cooked foods. For example, fresh fruit, hot drinks, bread and canned meats. Things that don't have to be kept really cold nor cooked much.

This morning, before work, I looked at my breaker box. Again, it looks as though it will be a better option to put it closer to the point of use. Under the kitchenette countertop there appears to be sufficient space to house it. There's a handy body rib it can be screwed to and its close to the hole the hillbillies made for their power input.

The downside is that situated under the countertop, the breaker box will be behind my fridge or cooler. The upside is that my 50A cable can be really short as can my 15A cables. In fact I'm wondering whether I could get away with 30A. I suspect I probably can but for the purposes of the box, I'll aim for 50, put a 30A main fuse and see what happens.

I'll probably rebuild the hillbilly door to their underbody compartment and rebuild the compartment to take a couple of 105Ah batteries. The socket for the 50a input will be accessible underneath the bus, out of sight. The water input and waste water will be concealed also. I want my bus to look like a bus from the outside.

Thinking about plumbing, I'm not sure whether to have piped water to go into my holding tanks to be pumped manually to the point of use or whether to have a separate tap. Both options have merit though the former requires less components.

It's all getting quite exciting! Once the electrics are done, I can get on with changing the registration.

Starting with electrics

Today I had enough energy after work to visit Lowe's to pick up some electrical supplies. I now have a breaker box although I suspect it might be a little oversized for what I need. They were put into the bus to await commencement of the electrics. I like to be a little ahead.

Meanwhile, here's a photo of my almost cleared countertop. By the end of the weekend, that countertop will be cleared and repainted.

Today also, a surprise phonecall. This morning, Eric who's currently touring Canada rang. I didn't answer as I was otherwise employed so this evening, I rang him. We had a nice chat about the bus, my plans and electrics.

His recommendations were to go for a secondhand fridge. His opinion of the Haer dorm fridges was that they were power hogs. His recommendation was to go for a small household fridge or a 12v fridge. I think initially, I might just use an ice box.

From Eric's travels, the 30A socket was the most common at campgrounds. This means that I've way overdone it with my breaker box. Really, I want each socket on a separate breaker but the box is a bit big. I'll have to see if I can fit it or whether I should exchange it for a pair of smaller boxes.

On the 12v side, Eric recommended hunting for an Opel Astra fuse box from a scrapyard. Apparently GM built a copy of the Opel Astra that was identical on all levels. Another recommendation was some kind of smart relay that could be used to make cabin batteries charge from the alternator.

It was such a high speed conversation that I missed a lot of what was said. Really I need my bus and Eric to meet. I think he'd have a blast redoing bus wiring, wiring in trailer lights and so on. That's unlikely to happen until next year though.

Purple rain

I never meant to cause you any sorrow
I never meant to cause you any pain
I only wanted to one time to see you laughing
I only wanted to see you
Laughing in the purple rain

And so sang the artist formally known as Prince which gets us rather neatly to today's first achievement. Purple paint! Today I put purple paint on the ceiling of the galley or rather, a second coat of purple paint. The white undercoat was showing through in places. A second coat should see that gone from view. The walls also needed some recoating and the new drawers had a coat on the fronts. This latex paint isn't very durable and I've already had to touch up some areas.

Needless to say, there have been a few drops of purple rain from the ceiling and I did run my head into a freshly painted patch. I'll have purple hair for the next few hours! It always washes out pretty easily.

Earlier today, I had a trip to Lowe's. Yesterday on my way back from my voluntary work, I also stopped off at Lowe's. It's nice to wander around the electrical aisle to see what's there. I'm trying to decide how to approach the electrical system. Thus far, these are the ideas....
1. 3 x 110v sockets in the kitchen for a 110v fridge, microwave and one other appliance.
2. 12v or even 5v for two USB sockets in the bedroom and on the othger side of the galley.
3. 12v led lighting throughout or no lighting bar movable led lanterns.
4. Electric water heater. This could be a small (1 gallon) gravity tank above the handbasin or shower.
5. Underbody hot tank. This needn't be more than 5 or 10 gallons and could be heated directly by solar panels.

It's all very much of a mishmash because I've not really decided on my direction. I could go solely solar with no plugin whatsoever. Basically, a totally boondocking solution. I could go with a totally plug in solution that would eliminate batteries and inverters and just use a small generator for boondocking. Wind hasn't featured in my deliberations though perhaps it should.

Reading about people's wind power solutions with RVs, they seem to be universally disappointing. I'm not sure why though - whether they're expecting more from wind than it can deliver it whether there are problems of scale and location. I'm not even sure what kind of power consumption they have.

Solar seems popular though it is expensive. A single 100w panel will cost around $100 and will produce 6 - 10 hours of power at around 50w average. Thus, a 100w panel will produce about 50watt hours of power per day. Putting that into a 100ah 12v battery would put about 4.15ah into the 12v battery. That's not really practical!

I'm thinking that I should have a solution initially that has no battery and which uses solely external electricity. I'm beginning to see why people use gas for cooking and water heating. I must admit that a gas solution does look attractive!

So, after painting the ceiling and the drawer fronts, my next task was to work more on painting the toilet. This will take several painting sessions. There are some areas I can't really reach with a brush but I'll do my best as always.

It's getting rapidly to the point where I will have to tidy the galley, to free it of construction debris. Indeed, its approaching usable! Question is, where to put everything? I guess I need to plug on, put up the closet chain and put the batwing doors together. That should reduce the quantity of stuff yet more.

After the toilet, while waiting for the paint to dry, I had a good knobbing session in the galley. Put that dirty mind away! This is what I meant..

I put the knobs on almost all of my drawers. The last knob on the other side of the bus proved problematic. It's bolt was too short so I need another bolt. Measuring it, it seems to be 3.9 to 4mm diameter which probably means its a 5/32 or it could be an M4 since the knob was made in China!

There are 3 varieties of knob. Two are close enough to be the same but packaged under different labels. There are 2 different sizes. Basically, its what I got from Ace Hardware's bargain bin the other day. Only a real plonker would buy stuff at full price!

Returning to my labors, I touched up a lot of the white paint and turned the kitchenette counted the right way up. The smooth side is now down. Now the idea had been to put self adhesive vinyl tiles on top. The new idea is to get thick, vinyl tablecloths as long as they can reliably be as long as my countertops then to attach Velcro strips and simply Velcro them into place. That seems to me to be much easier and cheaper as well as more instantly replaceable than vinyl tiles.

Putting yet more paint on the toilet, I noted that two more very brief painting sessions will see the whole toilet painted. The bathroom vanity top needs but one painting session before it gets screwed into place or rather, after it ius screwed down.

In essence, there are but three tasks remaining. To put up the closet chain, to build the saloon doors and to screw all the countertops down. Then it's all electrics, water and attending to the front door locking/unlocking mechanism.

Trying my cutlery tray into place in what will be the cutlery drawer showed it to be a little wide. Darn! Still, it was only ever a cheap thing. I can do better!

Thinking time, drinking time, planning time

Astonishing temperatures recorded along the length of the bus today of 120.5 in the bedroom, 118 in the dinette and 125 in the cockpit added up to a bus that was just too hot to work in. Outside temperatures of 100F meant even filling holes was a non starter.

It was a day for drinking copious quantities of fluids of the non alcoholic variety and a time for planning and thinking. The end of the woodwork phase approaches and should be completed by the end of June.

The remaining woodwork needed is to complete the kitchenette and dinette. The dinette just needs the drawer I started to be completed, a top put on and paint. The kitchenette needs several sets of drawers though I might put a cupboard at one end and a fridge space at the other. I built the kitchenette to accommodate one of the dorm fridges. I'll also build a small closet at the front of the bus. All of that'll need painting.

For paint, I fancy lavender or purple and white for the dinette/kitchenette and yellow and white for the bathroom. The bathroom needs a comode. I'll probably build one similar to the first one I built but I'll build it better. The shower base will either be a tin bathtub or a black rubber horse trough. I'm not keen on tin because the rust issue on my white PVC floor. The black trough doesn't go so well with the decor but seems more functionally better. Both will need drain holes to be installed. That's a good thing because I can put them where its convenient but could be tricky to seal though the black rubber should be easier.

There's only going to be one handbasin in the bus. A little shocking but practical. Everywhere I've ever lived, people have done therir dishes in a plastic tub that they've placed in the handbasin. Why not just do away with the the handbasin? Just have one in the bathroom since I already own that one and port the clean water in a jug and simply empty the used water into the handbasin or the shower.

Tied to water disposal are other ideas. If I have a dry toilet which is going to cost next to nothing go build then I will have to put waste water in a grey tank. The general rule goes that grey and black waste can only be disposed of at authorised sites. My thought is that grey water can be used to flush the toilet if a flush unit is in use. Otherwise, water in the grey tank can be evaporated via forced air ventilation. It follows that the black tank where one is in use could also be force ventilated in order to reduce disposal volume.

For the dry toilet, essentially the comode is a seat over a bucket with a lid into which cat lit or compost is placed, covering the fresh deposits. It's pretty much the same as the old earth closets.

Water and holding tanks can all be of the 15 gallon variety. The 15 gallon tanks won't show under the skirt around the edge of the bus. Multiple 15 gallon tanks for fresh water can be used. Thinking about hot water, I could out a 10 gallon hot tank under the bus. I honestly cannot fathom needing more than a couple of gallons for washing.

Batteries and electrics need not be complex. I'm thinking of a single flexible solar panel glued to the roof to start with. That will charge two deep cycle batteries mounted under the bus. The clever bit is surplus power will be used to heat the water. The only 110v appliances will be the microwave, fridge, kettle and slow cooker or steamer. There will be a charging station for electronics and possibly some internal lighting but the lighting will be 12v or less and LED.

Ventilation is an interesting issue. I could put a minuscule AC unit or I could put the modified swamp cooler I wrote about a few days ago. I might need a dehumidifier too but I'm not sure yet.

There are other things that I have yet to touch upon but this is basic gist of my thoughts. Most of this won't change. It's just going to take a while to do all on my own.