It's 14 inches!

Thinking more about water tanks, it makes sense to use purpose built fresh water tanks as opposed to repurposed tanks. The bigger they are, the more costly they are - whoever said building an RV is cheap?

I measured before but had forgotten why I wanted smaller tanks. Others use the big 55 gallon tanks but after having measured the depth of the skirt as being 14 inches between the bottom of the body ribs and the bottom of the skirt, it became obvious that if I want things not to be vulgarly on display them they cannot be deeper than 14 inches. There's just no reason why anybody should look at my bus and see it not as a bus.

There are 15 gallon drums available at $40 each new. If they're more than $10 secondhand, they're not worth having. Looking on eBay at RV water tanks, they're not that expensive. A 40 gallon grey tank is $130 + $43 shipping. I'd need 3 blue drums of 15 gallons each to match that. That sounds very possible and the lower the price, the better they are.

Out of curiosity I paused at an RV store and priced white water tanks. Some of the prices were a little eye watering.

Online, via eBay, the prices are a lot lower but shipping is the killer, adding a lot to the cost. Thus, I had a look at a scrapyard at secondhand beer barrels. They're stainless steel but the good ones go like greased lightning. Those that they had, had bullet holes in them (it IS America and Americans put bullet holes in everything given half a chance). While the holes could easily be plugged, the problem is the lead fragments inside the barrel plus contaminants that had crept in through the holes.

The next thing I looked at was coolers, bearing in mind the idea that coolers could hold warm water too. I took measurements and thought while I was doing so of using plastic storage boxes for water. The lids could be sealed with inlet and outlet put through the lid. Clearly they'd need support from the bottom, sides and ends to stop them collapsing but that's a possibility.

RV water tanks are neat but as they're rectangular and have no visible method of attachment could be interesting to mount. In an emergency, a plastic tote sitting inside the vehicle with rope and wooden slats tied to it could be used.

Following that, I had a look for plastic 15 gallon barrels for waste water. I found a sign with some samples but could not locate the place selling them. Whichever way I went looked the wrong way so I gave up on it.

Fortunately the weekend is not a dead loss. I did get another fire extinguisher and some velcro to hold up some shower curtains over the bathroom windows. Predictably I forgot to get the shower curtain. I'll have to have another go at getting the barrels. They're only for waste water so it's not important what was in them as long as it wasn't something like pure sodium!

The first thing done inside the bus today was to install a new fire extinguisher. This means I have three, two installed by myself. This one being a little larger went into the bedroom.

The next thing was to install the cutlery tray in the cutlery drawer. The tray was wider than the drawer so the edges had to be cut off the tray. In the end, it fitted nicely.

In order to install the shower base, it appears I need a 1.5" hole saw for the outflow. As I don't have one, that means a trip to Lowe's. It also means having to go underneath the bus to locate a good spot to put a 1.5" hole.

A suggestion was made that if the water tank was generated from 3" PVC piping, that could be an economic solution. On the whole, it does look interesting. Indeed tubing would be easy to bundle and hold together with steel straps and easy to sling under the bus. To carry 50 gallons at 0.36 gallons per foot, it'd take 138 feet of piping but in 5 foot lengths, that'd be 27 lengths. Laid with reducing numbers of pipes 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 would get the job done. The cost though works out at $12 per 10 foot section or 14 x $12 which works out at $170 which is pretty expensive!

Meanwhile, I realised that if I'm at an RV park, I can just plumb straight in for white and grey water with no need for tanks. Despite all that, I plugged on with the shower base mount. One end is now completed. The other I'll complete tomorrow.

As I did that, my eye alighted on the cooler I bought a few weeks ago. It's only 3 gallon but could hold enough hot water for a good all over wash.

I looked at the old fridge that was in the original motorhome conversion and would have plugged it in in order to test it. I didn't though as it was in a tricky place to access.

Having got this far, I've been thinking about some way of keeping my plates, dishes etc from rattling against each other in the drawers. I'm low on wooden dowels so I'll probably have to get some. The idea is to build a dish rack into the drawers. Perhaps one might be available to buy which would simplify things a lot!

Another rainy day!

Today being a total washout as far as cutting plastic planks went, I worked on other things inside the bus. The little lantern I bought is a real godsend. Without it I'd have been unable to see to do anything. It really was that dark, what with all the rain.

After putzing around a bit, I started on the closet chain. It was a lot easier than I'd imagined though I had to tip my tool box contents and my supplies box contents into the shower pan in order to find the things I needed. That took some time too.

The closet chain is unfinished because I ran out of screw hooks. I had six and I have 20 rivnuts. Thus, I installed six rivnuts and six screw eyes with s hooks. Then the chain was hung from the s hooks. It's an elegant, lightweight solution. Each hook is 7 inches from the next. I figure that should hold the weight of clothing.

After installing the closet chain, my next project was to fit a handle on the toilet lid so that it can be opened and closed as needed. That was the work of a very few minutes.

The door lock had started being a bit odd in operation and certainly didn't look right as the tongues were hanging at a sloppy angle. I dismantled it and was amazed at how cheap and nasty it looked. Clearly the lock company whose name shall not be mentioned has just sold me any old junk rather than a decent quality lock. Needless to say, I reassembled it as it should have been and remounted it. This time, it worked properly. That's something that it has never done before. My guess is that it was bad from the start!

The hanbdbasin mount was fastened down. That took all of four screws and a few minutes. The hand basin itself is just held into place by gravity. There never were any mounts as such in the original installation. This hanbdbasin came from the hillbilly bus build.

In the background is my thermometer/hygrometer gizmo. Today it was 75F (24C) and 76% humidity. That was very pleasant for working inside the bus. I can see a dehumidifier will be needed.

I tried my breaker box in place. I couldn't fasten it as I'm lacking a main cable and its conduit just as I'm lacking sockets and other cables. Today was a day for visualising the electrical system.

Next, I fished my microwave out of storage and placed it on the countertop. It's a cheap Walmart microwave that I used from November of 2011 until April of 2015 when I moved house. Looking at the setup, it just seems that four surface mount electrical sockets would go very nicely on the front of the beam under the microwave.

As I'm limiting the power input to 50A, I figure two sockets can be 15A and two can be 10A. There will be a main breaker at 30A with a spare breaker at 50A for times when I'll be able to access 50A. For safety, when I'm on a 15A supply as when parked at home, I'll use a 15A main breaker.

Looking inside my microwave showed how horribly rusty it is. M'lady wants me to throw it away but I want to do what my dad did with his rusty microwave. He cleaned it out with steel wool and painted it with anti rust paint. It worked for years after that.

It does show why enameled paint inside a microwave is a sign of a cheapass microwave. The better microwaves are stainless inside. When it dies, I have plans for the components inside.

Mounted on the skirt of the bus, behind the hillbilly compartment (which will house a pair of batteries once I've rebuilt the compartment) will be this socket. The door goes outside the bus skirt. The box goes inside. The cable will be a dryer cable in a conduit from the 50A socket to the breaker box. I'd like to use flexible conduit but I think standard conduit might be cheaper and more practical to install.

On top of the breaker box I'd like to install sockets so that I can just plug my other cables in. It's more expensive but I feel a better solution.

If I can get my closet chain completed this week and the shower base mount then the electrics really won't take long. I'm annoyingly close to being able to apply for the bus to be registered as a motorhome.

My final act was to install a fire extinguisher. This was installed directly opposite the electrical system. This extinguisher is specifically for electrical fires and burning liquids. Ideal for kitchens! Let's just say that First Alert's wall mount for the extinguisher was very troublesome to install. It would be so much better if instead of a nasty plastic strap, a Velcro strap or a solid loop was used. I have no idea whether I'll be able to remove the extinguisher from the nasty strap or whether I'll just have to rip it off the wall if it's ever needed. This is why I'll be installing more extinguishers.

More painting amid thunderstorms!

As I'm not doing anything electrical with circular saws, angle grinders, power sanders or power drills, the fact rain was falling didn't matter a tiddlers winkle. In fact,it was cooler with the rain falling if not comfortable inside the bus.

The first thing done today was to finish priming everything. The front closet had the areas untouched by the roller primed. Then the drawers had the final bits of primer then the toilet was mostly primed. Some areas are just very tricky to reach with a brush. That'll take some determined contortions!

After the priming was completed (bar the tricky bits of the toilet), the closet had a coat of topcoat. That'll need work with a brush tomorrow. After that the front partition might get a coat of blue paint. During that process it might be as well to paint the floor. Now that should be black to match the existing floor but by the time it's been walked on a few times, it'll turn black

Yesterday there was no blog entry. This was due to work commitments, an after work meeting and some shopping. Ace Hardware had a bargain bin that had brass drawer knobs. They look the same but there are in fact two varieties. One is fractionally larger. At less than half price it was impossible to resist the temptation. While there, a fire extinguisher caught my eye. As there's a plan to have six - two in each compartment, it seemed a good time to pick one up.

The one purchased yesterday claims to work with electrics and flammible liquids. That sounds like it should be good for engines, batteries and kitchens.

The bus came with one. It seems to be OK but with extinguishers its not possible to have too many. I'm not really sure which extinguishers are best so I'm fumbling around in the dark.