The electrics

Today is a day of looking up electrics for my motorhome. Various naysayers have been saying heating and water heating should be done with propane. The awkward sod in me says let's look at an electrical solution instead. I usually buck the trend.

The first thing I did was to check the internet for an electric shower. Low and behold, there is one at Home Depot for $103. That's affordable. Here it is! The specification is for 2.5kw which seems a trifle excessive. The amperage of the unit is stated to be 23 which means at 110v the power used is 2530 watts. Elsewhere, a Chinese supplier was offering a 300w shower. Thus I checked to see what was on offer in Britain. Britain is very happy with electric showers. The lowest rating on their B&Q website was 7.5kw. At 220v that would be around 34amps. All of that, honestly seems excessive. The goal is not to luxuriate in a hot shower for 20 minutes but simply to get clean in warm water. There's a limited amount of water available in any motor home. 2500 watts straight off an inverter with no losses at all. A 38 ah 12v battery would supply just 456 watts. It would take 5 linked together to provide enough power for that shower. This, of course, is the point where most people say "screw it" and go for propane.

A shower does not have to be hot. It just has to be warm enough not to be perceived as cold. Thus, the 300w shower might well be a solution. The next things to turn our minds to are the power consumption of the fridge, microwave and other appliances. Then we need to look into power generation using wind and or solar power.

The truth about the Motorhome

Until now I've given lots of fairly opaque good reasons why I have opted to move into a motor home. This is the absolute down gritty truth.

1. I was working quite happily for Barnes & Noble, full time as a Head Cashier. I wasn't making much but I was comfortable. That job ended in January of 2014 when Barnes & Noble closed the store. There was a lot said about the reasons for it and a lot of surmising but at the end of it all, my 40 hour a week job ended and there was no real opportunity to transfer elsewhere.
2. Concurrently with working with Barnes & Noble, I was completing a course with Midlands Technical College that was entitled "Medical Billing and Coding Specialist". This was sold to me as a course that would definitely get me work as there was always a need for coders and billers.
3. Subsequent to Barnes & Noble ending, I managed to obtain a temporary position with DHL that could have become permanent but did not. I can't say I'm sad about that as their computer system was very haphazard in operation.
4. After DHL ended in February I was on a miserly $153 unemployment from the state until that ended some 20 weeks later.
5. A couple of months after the unemployment ended and I'd been living off savings, trying hard to get work ever since February, I landed a part-time position minding children in an after school program that I didn't even remember applying for.
6. The income from the after school program is not enough to pay all my bills. So much so that I still receive Food Stamps and still have to dip into my rapidly depleting savings - even when my bills are... $525 for rent, $28 for electricity, $45 for cellphone and (now) $20 for internet. Adding gas on top plus car insurance depletes my savings. I really don't make much.

I analyzed my situation and came to the conclusion I was paying the lowest possible rent and that the only way to get cheaper was to get a motorhome and maybe pay $100 a month lot rent. Needless to say I keep applying for jobs. Good Heavens, I'm qualified - a Bachelor's degree, work experience, worked with people - a people person, been in management and have a medical coding/billing qualification. All I get is agencies responding and calling me to interview in distant locations then promising to get back and not doing so - even when prompted. Employers interview and promise to get back but never do. I never know whether they want me and can't get hold of me or can't be bothered to get back to me to let me know. So for the moment I'm stuck on a low wage job trying to make ends meet.

Thus, my dad gave me money to buy an old bus. I bought it and am now converting it into a motorhome. The goal
is to be living in it in January. Even if there's no cooking, shower or toilet installed, January is my goal. Christmas will be hard because my after-school job does not pay if there is no school. Thus the summer will be desperate poverty.

I cannot guarantee to get a really decent position given the state of things in South Carolina. I feel very much that the only jobs that my course created were jobs for people working at Midlands Tech. Certainly I see jobs for Billers and Coders but every medical admin job I apply for locally gets the same results - either no response or horror when they realize I'm not a woman (not that they have any reason to believe otherwise). As an example:
1. I was offered an interview by email from a surgeon's office. I rang and the secretary became hostile and denied that the email was genuine, said there were no jobs and nobody was recruiting. My ladyfriend rang and was told there were plenty jobs - by the same woman, 20 minutes later.
2. I was offered a job interview by a dentist for his front office. I rang to book the interview and was given an interview time. 20 minutes later they rang back to cancel because the dentist would be out of town and they would ring back. I rang back a couple of times and had fob-off answers. Then I realized that like the surgeon's office, it was sexism. Subsequently when I visited my own dentist I mentioned that dentist to her and she knew of him and laughed because some of her female patients had been propositioned by him at a party and were not amused.
3. I was offered another job interview which was canceled when they realized I'm not a woman. I can't recall the exact details now.

So, it makes sense to reduce costs to a point where I can survive off my earnings. Living without heat and air conditioning reduced my electricity bill to $27 a month. I can't do without internet or cellphone as I need both in order to apply for jobs since ALL job applications are now online. I hate being in this position but I am forced into it by the endemic sexism in South Carolina. Thank God I'm not black because then I'd be facing endemic racism as well. As far as the course to be a Medical Coding and Billing specialist, I feel Midlands Tech lied to me about job opportunities with it and thus took money under false pretenses. I feel the only jobs they secured with that $3,000 (approx) rip-off were their own. Not once did they say "Only women get work in admin in South Carolina" and recommend a more suitable course. If there ever was an American Dream, it's a bad nightmare in South Carolina for this educated White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

Now you know why I'm getting a motorhome together. Another side effect of the motorhome is that I can simply drive it closer to wherever I work and just use my car to commute.

Concurrence

It seems that waterproof rivets are not really utterly needed. What was suggested was to use an ordinary pop rivet but to dip it in glue then to use it then after use, to dab more glue on top of the rivet head. That makes sense. Apparently this technique is often used on small boats. Small boats will be subject to far more waterpressure than the occasional downpour. Indeed, I rather suspect that somebody jetwashing my bus might wash my freshly applied paint off which would be exceedingly unwelcome.

In daylight, up close it's possible to see ripples and runs on the paint. From a distance it's possible to see where the second coat has not been applied. On the whole, it looks better than school bus yellow. I'll attack the rivet holes in the roof this coming weekend and will probably roller the roof at the same time.

I'm not too bothered about a pristine paint finish because this is an OLD school bus. It's not a new bus and NOTHING will increase or reduce its value. As I've already stated, paintbrushes are $1.99 each and the Smoke Grey Rustoleum is $25 a gallon plus a few hours work at the weekend. My time is free and doesn't cost me anything. My helper's time is also free. He helps me for something to do at the weekend in order to escape the household.

A paint roller would be more expensive and spray painting would be horrendously expensive since none of us owns a sprayer. Individual cans of spray paint are pretty worthless as they really don't cover more than a couple of square feet before they're out. Spray cans are handy in hard-to-reach areas.

The whole aim of the paint job is to produce something of a different color and to protect the bus. Mostly its a different color thing, just to differentiate the bus from a school bus.

One of the tasks after this will be to couple the indicator lights and brake lights to the top lights so that when the brake is pressed, the top rear reds come on. The amber lights at the top will be used as turn indicators. On the front, initially only the turn indicators will be used. If, however, a clear lens can be found for the red lights then they could well become a second set of side lights. Other than that they have no particular use and might well end up as spare brake lights with steel plate riveted over their positions.

Paintwork

I can't remember what the plan was for the day but it was a bright and sunny day with a light breeze and a blue sky. My girlfriend's sister's boyfriend decided it was time to unload the bus so I drove it down a narrow, winding track surrounded by tall vegetation and trees to the unloading site. There, the bus was unloaded and I commenced trying to fill some of the screw holes with screws and shower sealant. It wasn't very successful but as most of the holes are in the upper part of the body and there was tape over the holes anyway, the idea was paused for the moment.

The beauty of an older bus is that the paint finish does not have to be perfect. Nobody cares. Thus with the bus emptied - during which I noted that the shower sealant seems to have secured the loose door gasket to the door quite satisfactorily, I pulled out a $25 gallon can of Rustoleum Smoke Grey paint and a brush. I started painting and basically just slapping a first coat onto the bus, expecting to have to do a second coat. Then my girlfriend's sister's boyfriend leapt into action and followed me as the paint dried rapidly in the sun to do the second coat.

Eventually, painting as high as the bottoms of the windows only for today, we made our way along the one side and the back with two coats. The second side has one coat along half the length and a second along the rest. I'd started on the front but the light escaped and the temperature dropped. As the wolves howled in the distance we cleaned our hands and the paintbrushes with gasoline and returned to the fold.

The paint has been mostly used but there should be enough left to complete the side and possibly one coat for the front end. For some areas, a spray will be needed. The roof can be done with a roller.

Meanwhile, two ideas came to mind for the holes (some of which have just been taped and painted). The first idea is to remove interior panels and put bolts through to seal the holes. The second is to use non-waterproof rivets and a dollop of sealant on the rivet heads. On the whole, the bolt plan is far more appealing.

Rustoleum was used rather than automotive paint because it's available in most hardware stores in tubs and in spray cans. As I'm not after a flawless finish, it really doesn't matter if it's applied with a brush, a roller or a spray. Brushes are $1.99 and rollers aren't much more. All the paint has to do is to protect the body from rust and to give it a color other than school bus yellow. It was mentioned that the bus now looks like a reformational institution bus which had me jokingly calling it the bus of the corrective institute for delinquent women.

Further thoughts came to mind about the windows and that was to apply a darkening film on the insides of the windows that will be used and black paint to the insides of the windows that won't be used. If there's an opaque black film that can be applied, that might be worth investigating.

Photos of today's progress are attached. In all, this was a day of great progress. The insides of the wheel arches desperately need to be re-coated. The coating - if indeed there was any has vanished. The yellow paint has chipped away and only the galvanized coating on the steel remains. Clearly I need to get underbody or wheel arch sealant on that desperately.

In general, I am happy with today's progress. One area I'm lagging behind badly with is financial documentation. I think I have most of my receipts but I'm not sure. I can definitely see progress with the bus. The interior will still be a kind of erector set but instead of OSB, plywood will be used due to its lighter weight and greater dimensional stability. It has a higher cost but the cost is probably worthwhile.

Originally the idea was to use waterproof rivets to fill the holes in the bus but at $138 for 500 the cost was ludicrous - especially when doing it either of the ways that I've considered today are so much cheaper though more labor intensive. The whole goal of doing this bus conversion is to save money. The bus cost $4,200. I'm trying to get the conversion in for $1,000 though some of the funkier aspects such as electrical supply, shower, sinks and toilet might go over budget a bit. Those problems will be surmounted when they arise.

Two windows are missing from the bus. Various ideas have come to mind to deal with this issue. One was to cut the aluminum folding table from the side of the bus into window-sized sheets and use it to fill the holes. Another was to search scrapyards and school bus depots for scrapped busses. Since Carpenter went out of business in 2001, school districts will be dumping old Carpenter stock when it needs major repairs.

A task for another day is to remove the crudely welded tow hook from the front bumper. That was a bizarre place to have a tow hook. The hill billies that owned the bus and converted it to a hunting lodge did a whole load of strange things. Craftsmanship was not high on their agenda as the crude welding on the tow hook demonstrates. It looks almost like a classic example of bad welding put together for welding students to see what not to do.

Rainy day

Wouldn't you just know it! The weekend and it's raining so it's not possible to work on the outside of the bus nor since it's chock full of m'lady's belongings is it possible to work inside either. Thus the solution is to work on my receipts to see where the money is all going.

Meanwhile, I had some new ideas about the interior. Instead of spending a ton of money on steel plates to replace the windows, the two missing windows will be replaced by steel or plywood or something and the others will simply be painted over. All the windows will have a sheet of semi rigid plastic stuck over them to reduce condensation inside the bus. Velcro will be used to attach insulation to the interior panels in order that it can be removed if there are issues that need attention. The interior structure will be built of a framework of angle iron with OSB paneling, faced with something more user friendly but inexpensive.

The plumbing and electrics will be interesting to do. Immediately I'm thinking about the interior structure. Plumbing and electrics will be interesting in their own rights but will be handled separately. There will be a 12v lighting circuit using LED lights only and a 5v circuit with USB sockets for use for charging phones beside the bed. There will also be a charging station. As far as plumbing is concerned, it makes sense to have the shower, toilet and kitchen area on one side of the bus, all next to each other.

The whole idea is to have everything simple for installation and maintainance. The angle iron will be bolted together rather than riveted on the basis that if need be, it can be disassembled easily in order to resolve possible future problems.

The main aim is to do this as cheaply as possible. This is why a schoolbus is used instead of just buying an ordinary RV or motorhome. The cheapest RV was $14,000 from a dealer and had a gasoline engine. This was $4,200 and has a diesel engine. Diesel is more advantageous as it's more powerful though slower burning. Diesel engines tend to be slower but more economical. Despite the bus being heavier due to its more solid construction methods, it's still better in my opinion.

One thing I laugh at is that while my bus was parked here, somebody pinched a few gallons of diesel. As nobody around here runs anything that has a diesel engine, my best bet is they put it into a gasoline engine and then had to call a tow truck and have a mechanic to fix their gasoline engine. There sure are plenty people dumb enough to do that!

The only bus-related activity completed today was to put shower sealant on the back door to try to glue the rubber door seal back into place. Other than that I collected most of my receipts to add them all up.

Bogus mileage part 3

A few days ago I contacted Calcasieu Parish Schools to determine the mileage of the bus. Today there was a reply in my email. It seems the person I contacted is leaving the district but passed my email to somebody else and said that Perterson Auto Auctions would have sold the bus on their behalf.

Elsewhere, somebody looked at the odometer photo and commented that on bigger vehicles the digits almost never line up. A former school bus driver commented that school bus routes tended to be 15 - 30 miles twice daily at 180 days a year. Checking my local school district calendar, the students started on August 18th (a Monday) and end on June 3rd. Again, it's emphasized that it's a 180 day calendar. Given that 30 - 60 miles daily for the 16 years the bus was in service (1995 - 2011) the mileage could be 86,400 to 172,800. The bus was in private hands as a hunting lodge from 2011 - 2013 and in somebody's yard from 2013 until I bought it.

If the mileage is genuine then the hunting lodge owners didn't get much use out of it before they sold it on. The owner I bought it off had it sitting in his yard for a year, apparently. The wavy digits make me suspicious though. In 1992 I bought a Suzuki Alto FX with 46,000 miles listed. The digits didn't line up correctly until I reached 78,000 miles. It is beyond belief that a 1983 car would have 46,000 miles when the low average mileage is 8,000 a year or 72,000 for a car of that age. I thus compare these wavy digits to my old Suzuki.

Even if the odometer has been wound back from a maximum mileage of 30 per trip and 2 trips per day times 180 days times 16 years or 172,800 miles, that is barely broken in for a commercial vehicle. I shall investigate further but as I've said before, I'm only irked about possible deception. The bus seems like it's good for a good few years yet. The body is in great shape. The engine and transmission seem pretty good too.

Followup to bogus mileage.

Today, feeling a little concerned about the actual mileage, I rang the original bus operator - Calcasieu Parish Public Schools in Lake Charles, Louisiana. A very pleasant lady put me through to somebody's voicemail. With luck, they should ring back in the next couple of days. Meanwhile I emailed their director with information and questions.

I don't really care to go after the individual that altered the odometer suffice to say that if it was done illegally with intent to defraud me or the previous owner then I'll be happy to let the state take care of it all. All I want is to know approximately how many miles are on the bus so that I can compare that with the expected life expectancy of the components in order to budget for repairs and to estimate how much likely use I'll get from the bus before repairs are uneconomical.

In theory this information should all be held by the schools for at least 7 years and should be available under the Freedom of Information Act. Having said that, a cordial approach usually gets all the information very easily.