5 Things You Should Know Building A DIY Bus - SKOOLIE CONVERSION TIPS

hello everyone welcome to a brand new video and today i wanted to make something a little bit different i wanted to share five tips with you that i think you guys should know if you're building a schoolie these are things that i have learned over the years through multiple buses and i just wanted to share them with you guys in case you are new to building your bus or you're thinking about getting into building one just want to know what i'm about to say stick around for this video five tips let's go okay my first tip i think the actual most important thing if you're getting ready to buy a bus when you just bought a bus or you're thinking about a bus is the actual bus itself that's more important than your electrical it's more important than anything else because if your bus is a piece of crap or your bus don't run or your bus don't work it don't matter how much money you put in your conversion it's not going anywhere so that's my first tip i want to explain a couple different things there's gas buses and there's diesel buses a lot of people are intimidated by diesel because they're not as common and a lot of people don't have experience with diesel i personally prefer diesel diesels are made to haul late these are a lot heavier than vans for example i had a 1995 chevy g20 van conversion that i had years ago and it got about 11 miles per gallon couldn't stand in it it was super small i got a five window short bus way bigger to stand in it and i also got 11 so i got the same fuel economy way more space and that's why i kind of prefer diesel but the flip side of that is there are some diesel motors that are very very very unreliable i personally only like the 7.3 power stroke diesel i like the 6.6 duramax from chevy and that's pretty much it i only specialize in the van style buses i don't know the commercial stuff if you're gonna go for a van style bus research the diesel motor that's in the bus that you're looking at if it's known for unreliability and you already own the bus consider selling it i know people that have got out on the road and has spent eight to ten thousand dollars in the first month of hitting the road kind of not worth it if you have the van the van styles six six term at 7.3 power stroke nothing else don't buy anything else in the van chassis as far as diesel if you have a commercial style bus i don't have experience in that arena just research that motor and come up with your own conclusion whether you want to move forward with the bus that you have or whether you're looking for something specifically now gas is a little bit different there's also gas buses they're typically the van chassis gas is a way more simple system and they're kind of all pretty much decent as long as you buy a gas motor and you're okay with having half the lifespan and i mean any mechanic can pretty much work on a gas motor so it's like it is a safer bet you're gonna lose fuel economy and you're gonna lose distance a diesel motor will go 500 to a million miles like on average gas motors typically die out about 200k that's something to think about when you're looking at the bus the other thing i want to touch out as far as the bus is concerned is rust some people don't think about it people think you can just treat rust and it goes away that's kind of true the thing is you can treat everything that you can see but there's going to be a lot of rust that you can't that's inside of places that you don't know about or that you can't get to and it's going to rot away the body of your bus or the chassis uh so one of the things i look at well when i'm buying a bus i typically buy them from deserts where there isn't rain there's a moisture like that there's no water damage there's no rust the first thing i do is i get underneath the bus and i look around if i see rust rotting away any part of that chassis i won't touch it because like that's dangerous like the chassis falls out you're like you're gonna die probably one thing to look out for is looking for rest the other thing that i see a lot of people do is they will buy their bus and then it sits in their mom's front yard where they'll be while they are building it for the course of the next year to three years and they're not starting it they're not checking it they buy a bus they sit it and they just start building it like you need to make sure that your bus is reliable before you dump time and money in it the last thing you want to do is buy a bus for however much spend thirty thousand dollars on a conversion you go to take off and don't start you get on the road and it breaks like all your money and time is just gone a habit i'm always in is i'm starting the vehicle at least every other day if i can just to keep the fluids going through it you want to make sure you're driving it just because the thing it like that's how vehicles go bad it's just sitting right the other thing to do is i personally always take my vehicles to a mechanic that specializes in the vehicle have it gone through have it looked over make sure there isn't a ten thousand dollar repair sitting there waiting for you so tip number one the most important tip make sure the bus is solid for yourself do yourself that favor let's get on to the next tip i figured i'd change the scene up so you guys uh are looking at the same thing the whole time so the second tip is re-registering the vehicle and insurance now this is a tricky one because every single state has different rules and laws okay now i'll just get the elephant out of the bag right now as far as insurance you i use state farm okay if you are in oregon i have a state farm guy that owns his company and can hook you up so if you're in oregon and you need insurance for your bus find a way to contact me and get his information like he is a magical miracle worker but everybody that doesn't live in oregon and they need insurance as long as you pretty much go to state farm they they can pretty much insure you in in every state it's cheap there's i've heard so many horror stories about how you can't have a wood stove you can't do this you can't do that i mean i've built no problem okay so insurance do your own research i use state farm let's move on to re-registering all right now this one's real tricky i've heard people that have had a lot of problems trying to get their bus re-registered into an rv now let's talk about that for a second your bus is a commercial vehicle as it leaves the school district the thing about a commercial vehicle is unless you have a business like it's kind of it could be hard to get it insured the other thing is it's expensive like it's inexpensive to you know to register a commercial vehicle the reason that i like to re-register the vehicle as an rv is for a few reasons now again this is my state it could be different in your state compared to mine but it makes it way cheaper to ensure think about these 50 hundred thousand dollar rvs out there they're insured for that when i got my bus re-registered as an rv like it's at a dollar amount too so it's like i can say it's worth this much money and you can insure it for that much it's also way cheaper when you go to register it it costs more typically and it's usually by the foot but like it's just a big deal the other thing is it gets you out of certain things like you might not have to have seat belts in the rig now now that it's an rv you can have people moving around so like i said every state is a little bit different on the rules and regulations i recommend that you get your bus re-registered to an rv it's a whole nother video on like how to do all that insurance state farm registered as an rv just trust me on this one also do your own due diligence tip two tip three of things that i think you should know about is the layout of your rig it's very very important the layout of your rig now i will just talk about a few things everybody's needs are going to be different right you should look at what you need what you want to do look at the things you want to put in the bus what are things that are important to you like do you need a shower stall do you need a toilet do you want a garage style bed or do you want a dining these are things that i can't answer for you i'm going to tell you my experience with a couple different things that i have tried and then maybe it'll help you decide what you're going to do for your layout i typically always do the raised bed in the back with the garage space underneath it's easy and it comes in so handy i can just throw anything i want underneath the bed dirty laundry firewood just junk all kinds of stuff it's a whole bunch of space i typically do it three 20 inches tall that's a whole nother thing but that's like a thing right lots of storage and you don't see it you can throw stuff under there your bus still looks clean you have lots of room right you can also do the dinette like seat in the back or murphy bed now that leaves things exposed and you got to kind of shift things around if you don't have a whole bunch of stuff maybe that's something that you want to do but if you want to carry around paddle boards skateboards or firewood you might want to do the lifted bed with the garage area now another one is the shower and the toilet let's talk about that thing about a shower stall is it takes a lot of space no matter how you slice it if you build in a shower stall you're taking space now most people that i've ever seen with a shower stall on a bus it ends up becoming storage right because there's a few factors there you got to carry that much water to use it you got to refill it if you're using that much water and that's just a lot of space if you have a bigger bus maybe space doesn't matter if you're in a smaller space you know you're giving up a lot of space for that shower stall when you could just drive to planet fitness because most people aren't using that shower stall every day in their bus unless they got the water to support it that's something people don't think about sometimes as far as a toilet that's one of those things that doesn't take too much space a lot of people usually have some kind of like emergency system i'm personally pro toilet like the shower stall i could kind of go without but the toilet it's kind of nice to have it because like you could be out in the woods maybe you don't want to go out in the rain dig a hole like it's nice to have it just to have it it really doesn't take that much space you could build it into a cabinet or a seat or something you know it's not too terrible so i want to talk about dinette and couch this big controversy between having a dinette or a couch i have had and built both the one thing i will say about a dinette is it's kind of nice to sit across from somebody and have a meal kind of like a real house it's pretty nice it will drop down into a bed typically and you have another guest bed you know the dinette is pretty cool what you're giving up on the dinette is storage when you do a bench seat or a couch it's a way more chill loungeable area and i kind of like to put the couches by the driver's seat because there isn't you know another seat up there and you can kind of chill with your passenger it's way more user friendly i think you're not trying to move a table around to kind of get in there and you have a lot of storage that whole bench it just lifts up you stuff all kinds of stuff in there the dinette is cool you lose your storage the couch is is easier to use and you get more storage so it's like you know that kind of depends and if you just put a lagoon mount table on there you have a great work area it's functional i really i've done both and i'm kind of i kind of lean more towards the couch side of things the other thing listen up if you're not paying attention at all listen right here the one thing i see all the time in brand new conversions biggest mistake ever is they're putting a sheet of plywood for their bed your mattress can't breathe your body creates moisture when you sleep it will create mold it could create mold in your plywood and create mold in your mattress faster than you think it's possible i've seen people drill little holes they don't work you have to slap your bed i have seen it over the years so many times i'll see somebody put a plywood sheet down for their bed two three months later i see them cutting holes in it another you know couple weeks later they're turning out and they're putting slots in it so save yourself a whole bunch of time and energy and slap your bet that's layout let's get on to the next tip tip four is electrical this is one of those things that a lot of people are real scared about and there's just everybody's got an opinion i have an opinion too i'm going to share it with you my first thing i want to say to you is if you are not comfortable and you have no idea what you're doing get help hire somebody the electrical is not something that you want to play with like you can create a dangerous situation real quick you'll see it on instagram all the times and these buses that burn down don't play with the electrical if you're not comfortable and you don't think you can figure it out hire somebody there's no shame in it there's like this this thing is like they have to build their whole bus all by themselves it's like you'd be surprised how many people are hiring out for certain things and hiding it which is weird if you need help get help now the other thing i want to talk about electrical is most people over build it like crazy i personally think and it depends on your needs right it depends on where you're at it depends what you're running depends on all that that that's kind of the one thing i will say to you is look at what you're gonna put in your bus and kind of build it around that a lot of people are scared of propane propane is very efficient propane is cheap it's not as scary as people think and it saves your electric by a lot the other thing too is people always are asking me about ac units as soon as you introduce ac units into the game it's gonna cost you thousands three to five to six thousand dollars more for ac when in my and you know i'm not out in florida or arizona or whatever but in my opinion you open the windows the cross breeze cross it or cools the bus way faster and way more than people actually think i think by that and fans you're pretty good and it doesn't cost you much electric you put an ac unit in most people are trying to put mini splits in there most people don't have the power or you're going to spend so much money to power that thing most the ac units that you see on buses they're only able to be working like when the bus is in shore power which isn't often so it's like an illusion it's sitting there but they're not even using it now there is some new products out on the market i think this company called nomadic cooling company they're coming out i haven't used it but they have this like it's like three thousand dollars or something and it's supposed to be really efficient i don't know there's new technology out but like three thousand dollars is a lot of money for an ac unit now like i said i i don't think you need that much most people aren't running all that craziness right i personally 200 watts of solar on the roof i like at least 30 amps on a dc to dc charger i like 200 amp hours of lithium and that's pretty much it you know in a 2001 inverter but all i am running is like laptops i'm charging two laptops usually two people editing all night i'm charging camera batteries charging my phone and like i'm solid i guess on the electrical thing it's really hard i just see people put like thousands of watts of solar and like five thousand dollars in a battery bank and they're charging their phone that's crazy my my advice on electrical is don't listen to the dude who has ten thousand dollars in his electrical system just because he can i mean if you got money like that and you want to blow it go for it but a lot of people over build their electrical system so my advice to you what are you going to power build your electrical system to that not to what this dude says that you think is right okay next tip okay you've made it if you made it this far you obviously you know doing your due diligence i appreciate that this is tip five the final tip for your schoolie or bus now some of you this might rub you the wrong way uh but tip five is be realistic okay i know you're super excited about this new bus you got or this idea but be realistic what do i mean by that if you don't have a whole bunch of money in the bank be realistic on how you're going to build your bus you know you need to budget the whole build so it's like don't put all your money in one thing and then not have money to do something else and you kind of need to look at your budget and then you've got to make decisions on like what you're going to do in the build according to that budget because like you could buy a 200 battery by 2 000 battery that's the type of thing i'm talking about the other thing is you gotta let go of that perfection thing a lot of people that's kind of it's kind of a real tricky deal now unfortunately i see more buses never get finished and end up on craigslist as a partial build then i do get finished that's a fact and that's sad now this is where i'm going back to being realistic most people who are trying to build out a bus have no prior experience never owned a power tool some people you know you may have a little experience it's a little different but i would say the majority of people are walking into this including myself years ago and i had zero experience zero tools okay if you're one of those folks yes you can learn yes there is youtube but like another fact is most people that you see on social media that are van lifeing or they're bus lifeing full-time they're living in their second or third build i see a lot of people get their first build and just dive in way too deep and like they don't they can't get out they end up selling it they end up giving up to save yourself that my suggestion is on your first build be realistic do the best you can don't get too crazy and learn from the experience because there's a few things about this in your first build you think you know what you want but you don't you know you're gonna get out on the road and you're gonna realize i hate this dinette or you're gonna i hate this couch or i hate this wall here or i hate this thing or because you don't know you need to get out there so my advice is don't get too crazy on your first build do the best you can try not to spend a bunch of money and then get out there and experience experience it and learn for yourself learn what you think is you need learn what you think you want you you're gonna know when you get out there you don't know until you do it that's one of my biggest tips right because i see people just tearing the whole thing apart don't know how to put anything back up if you don't know electrical maybe buy a jackery hire somebody like if you can't build anything maybe go to ikea or walmart just throw some stuff in there that's what i mean like be realistic for example my first bus i hated the layout i did these wall dividers that separated the bed it made that five window bus seem so small every day i woke up i wanted to take a sledgehammer to those walls i ended up selling the bus and starting over i didn't know i see so many people out on the road remodeling because they hate one thing or another about to build because they didn't know until they got out there your first bus be realistic with your budget be realistic with your experience it's about the experience not building an instagram photo get it to the point where it will work for what you need with the least amount of money the least amount of time and get out there and learn for yourself quit listening to everybody else's opinions you need you create your own life create your own bus you create your own space get out there and find out what's important to you that's my advice that's it those are my five tips of things i think you should know if you're getting ready to build a school year you got one and thank you so much for watching if you are building a bus if you like if you like bus life adventures if you like information you like things like that consider subscribing if you're already not i hope this video helped you guys if it did leave a thumbs up and a comment it really does help me continue to make these things for you guys and you know i appreciate you guys being here with me this is isaac signing out peace out bye [Music] you

Channel: Isaac Turner

Views: 54,552

Keywords: 5 Things you should know building a bus, tips building a bus, bus building tips, school bus conversion, bus conversion, skoolie conversion, school bus, bus life, skoolie build, buying a school bus, school bus build, short bus conversion, bus build, short bus conversion build, short bus conversion tour, short bus conversion tiny house tour, short bus conversion 2021, bus life story

Id: 6TgNzNUAnSU

Length: 25min 19sec (1519 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 22 2022