High Tech School Bus Conversion - Nissan Leaf Powered Tiny House For Family Of 6

[Music] we got the bus because we started talking about alternative ways of living we had a house with 2,400 square foot and the kids were much smaller at the time but we just seemed to have a lot of kid cruft everywhere and a lot of things and a lot of stuff and constantly churning through it or giving it away or throwing things in the dumpster and we're also doing house remodel at the time so it just felt like we had a lot of things everywhere and we really just got tired of curating things the bus was sort of like a mantra to take and say well if it doesn't fit in the bus we don't need it and so we started using that idea in that containerization and and what do we really need and we continued to reduce things and I think that was really the the drive for this was what what's the minimum essentials do we really need to have a comfortable family home and I think this is kind of what we're found for equilibrium right now it's definitely improved our lives for the number of things that we have to deal with having much less in higher quality has been really a huge improvement in our lives hey I'm Erin Buckley this is the broccoli bus and we call it broccoli bus six on Instagram we have six folks to live in here right for kids my wife and I and then we also have two dogs and a cat so to start with very first part is our kitchen this is a relatively tight efficiency kitchen which takes up both sides we have just a standard domestic refrigerator it's called a library I think that's how you pronounce it it's like a 14 cubic foot fridge if I dare open it you can see it's got quite a bit of space in there and it's also the freezers on the bottom down here so this has worked really really well for us we have our little door latch there to keep it shut we can jam a lot of fresh fruit food in here we tend to put fruit and vegetables that don't need to be refrigerated in baskets and things in the kitchen and other storage areas last time we did a major restock was about two weeks ago so we can go quite a long ways on this on this fridge and honestly the freezer is completely packed so we really haven't eaten anything out of freezer part yet so we just sort of keep that for more reserves in case we can't get to a grocery store right away so it lasts quite a while moving back we have our stove here this is a 24 inch just like an apartment stove in range so it's it isn't designed to be installed with either propane or natural gas so it's been rejected for a propane and then we have all of our cabinetry around here various lights and things too to see what's going on there's a little area for like you know trays and things like that and then this is our large pantry that we have here so our big pantry has all of the big stuff in it so this is where we can really eat out of the pantry for quite a long time we have a lot of dry goods and all this stuff set up pretty well in here then above top up here is like a bread area for keeping tortillas and loaves of bread and rolls and things like that more pots and pans and things down here and then over on this side is the sink and more cabinet so we have our spiced spices we have all of our silverware and things in here all these drawers are actually designed to be used with excuses here this is the spices here these are all commercial kitchen pans so these are like the same kind of pans you would see when you're getting a sandwich at Subway the the same commercial shape fits in these so we can change them out for full third quarter things like that just our water faucet is kind of fancy so we have this guy here which is the main water of course and then we have a reverse osmosis tap which is this guy here so that really helps with a lot helps out a lot with things and then we also have a nice machine that we refill so we like to have ice all the time when we can I think that works well enough considering how many people we have and how our we have dedicated drive space in order to really make this different we would have to rearrange the entire layout to really change what we want we've seen several kitchen setups now that I think it would be nice to have everything on one side and sort of Passover far on the other side I think that'd be better like kind of an angle that angled really does help with you know space efficiency but this has worked pretty well for us the only thing it's a bit of a tight squeeze sometimes when there's like three people in here trying to work at the same time so our bathroom is actually spread across the hallway on both sides so our toilets on this side and this is sort of our cleaning closet area so we have vacuum cleaner the you know the the brooms and the mops and things like that our towels and whatnot are in here then our secret stash of toilet paper is hiding in there and then our shower is on this side over here so shower is also dual storage for laundry so we have just a normal Home Depot 30-inch short shower knock knock in thing it's just like one of those panel setups so I liked having a full-size real shower in here it's pretty great to have that and then towel storage above here for for things you know rags and whatever and some more of our secret stash up here the air conditioner sitting right here is actually intentional so when we're taking showers and things this runs in condensation mode and it's basically our vent for for moist air so it collects the moist air and dumps it right out without having to pull air out of the vehicle we have two air conditioning heads there's one up front which services the main area this is a 12,000 BTU unit and then there's a 9,000 BTU unit that you that's in the back that's for the because it gets closed off with doors and also the laundry runs back there so we need to kind of manage the temperature that way obviously you can see that it's running right now it's set at like 68 or 69 and we're running just off of the Sun completely it in the night time this thing draws off the battery all night long and then in the morning you know we're if we have to if it's hot and it's hot at night time our battery gets down to maybe 60 50 percent at the most and then on those really hot sunny days it comes right back up again to full power because we have lithium batteries it's not 50 percent at the end of it we can go way deeper than that but worst-case scenario so it works fantastic for our for our vehicle size and so finally the last part of the bathroom after the shower is around here is our sink so this is like the bathroom sink the idea is is that the the bathroom has split into three pieces the toilet the shower and the sink so everybody can rotate through the stations when it's time for bed at nighttime because there's a lot of folks and so we have like medicine cabinets toothbrushes soap and and all the hair dryers and things are in this cabinetry over here after the sink and bathroom area here is the main living area so the main living area is where we visit at this is where our large TV is at this is where the fireplace is that the fireplace is sort of a nice countertop just for putting everything else that it's not a real fireplace it's just to pretend but it looks really great and then this is a bed as well so a man and I this is our main bedroom and then at night time so I can just pull this out and I just make this up so it's pretty much these cushions tuck under there I just pull the pull those bits this folds down and now we have a full full-size bed for things making it is basically a matter of rolling up four sheets like a burrito and shoving it in the hole and then putting the pillows back so it's pretty nice and easy to make this bed this area right here is closed off from the back we have a door so we can take the sliding door and shut this this keeps the kids in their space and keeps us kind of an adult time over here the TV over here it pulls down like this Oh almost pulls down here we go so it's like a fireplace mount television so when we're sitting and watching TV it's at the normal height instead of really up in the air a lot because I don't like watching TV like that so this all holds in place really well we're driving so moving back from the main living area is the kid and the laundry area so this is like utility land over here we have our wash or dryer and our washer there also solar-powered and run off of just the Sun we have our book area for storage for homeschooling got all our books and things in here Ava's gigantic skateboard and then what we have here is the the for living arrangement areas for the kids so Ava bricks be Anders and Audrey this is their beds here and then they have their own air conditioning set up in here this is to keep them comfortable over on this side over here is their clothes so all of their clothes comes out so this is this their their closet drawers that they've get so they can tuck things away in their beds and they also have these these drawers too coming back a little further is this is the hump where the engine is at so right underneath this area it's kind of open and available so engine work can be accessed from the back side here a little work table this little work table here is just for the kids to do whatever so lots of play-doh things and all sorts of other stuff happens here sometimes schoolwork happens this is the litter box for the cat so he's got his little cat flap and there's a fan that vents everything out of the bus so we don't ever smell that which is really fantastic then a laser printer for schoolwork and office things and whatever and the kids have their little TV back here and then various storage cubbies for baskets and stuff and games and whatever else it might be that's back here so this is the front area up here where we drive when we're driving everybody rides in this area so Anders has this booster seat the kids all have their seats amanda has her seat and then I have mine of course and these are seats that came out of a minivan they're pretty comfortable one of my favorite aspects is that they have what's called stow and go so there's this the third row or center row so all these seats can fold down like this and if we want to reconfigure or change how we're setting things up the driver's seat console up here I redid all of the console because it was still Bluebird School Bus stuff it's got more stuff relevant to being a RV now our GPS tire pressure monitor the front facing that the road camera in the front all that stuff is there then I have like a rate a couple radios I have a CB radio and a ham radio up here the seat back here when we're not driving is my office it's a quick transform into an office space from a riding area it just takes a few steps so I have to fold the steering wheel up and then I use the stone go seat to fold this down which pulls that away then I have a little folding table here brings that up and then just bring my monitor down like this so once I tuck that there get my conveniently stashed keyboard and mouse and plug it in and that's basically an office at that point so then I just turned my computer on up it stays in here and this is my work office so I work remote do lots of video calls and chats that way and just a lot of discussion during the day so I have a web camera and headphones and that sort of thing I do get a lot of questions about where I'm at sometimes from clients it's pretty entertaining so I'm gonna just briefly talk about some of the power systems and life support systems you might call it that we have here this is our battery system though it's based off of a Nissan Leaf so this is the second gen Nissan Leaf batteries this is effectively 24 25 kilowatt hours of power it's equivalent to it's like 1,600 amp hours of that of power that's usable or if you were going with let acid as a comparison it's like having 3200 amp hours of lead acid batteries so our air conditioning all of our everything runs off of this washer/dryer toasters you name it so this was the can and and reassembled into this shape right now with the air conditioning running we're at a hundred percent battery we're consuming nine amps of current and our voltage is fifty six point five eight volts right now so this will just basically sit like this all day while we run AC tonight as it cools off a little bit probably won't draw nearly as much power and if we ran the AC all night long we don't usually have to because it cools off enough right now it'll be just a little bit to come back up again and as it gets hotter and hotter with AC running the the depth of discharge goes more and more that's our main consumer of power so on the other side over there we had the batteries those are fed over across the vehicle through some conduit into the electrical cabinet we have dual inverters over here you can hear their little fans are running there's an additional cooling fan system that draws cooler air from the cabin area to displace the hot air inside this space so this is a split phase system meaning it's 230 volts instead of just 120 this is the DC cabinet and what we have is a bunch of converters that convert the 48 volt battery system down to 12 for all the RV 12-volt things and lights and whatnot so in here is the electrical cabinet for 12 volt and it looks complicated but I promise it's not there's just a bunch of fuses for all the DC Circuit's and a lot of control for water pumps and lights and switches and fans and things like that that's all it is this is the AC distribution cabinet for the higher voltage stuff so inside of here is our safety interconnect for emergency rapid shutoff as well as the interconnect for short power and and also powering all the AC things so we have breakers for the air conditioning the washer/dryer and all the house circuits inside of here right here is a little tube this is what's called Blaise cut and it's a dry fire extinguishing media so if there's a fire or something hot in here this thing melts and disperses the the discharge material the inverters the power the solar and everything is configured off of a nice top that's connected to fire suppression so in the case of fire or just a manual shutdown all electrical gets cut off from the vehicle and then I have what's called the Venus GX over here which is an integration system and these all talk to each other in an intelligent manner and share information they also talked to the battery and the battery can tell these the boss these guys around depending on its state of things in this space is all of the solar safety equipment so inside of this box is high-voltage from the sir from the roof so we have surge suppressors and circuit breakers fuses I should say and then we have an emergency rapid shutdown switch we also have an e-stop for all of the electrical so if you need to shut off the battery and the inverters and the shore power you hit that and it all cuts to dead the battery is still of course containing energy but it's cut off right as close as possible to the battery this is the plumbing access Bay our hoses and things are in here for filling up the tanks this is our filtration system which has been very very important for us water can be salty and strange or kind of funny tasting or whatever or maybe there's none that at all so if we have to pull water from a source like a river or whatever we have a reverse osmosis system that secondary filters the bulk storage tanks that we have these filters here our primary filtration to the bulk storage so we have little shut offs for all of our our lines and things up in the up in the cabin area and then we have like a pressure tank the hot water heater and then that box right there with the number is thermal regulation so we have a space heater in here and several heating systems to keep this thing warm and freezing freezing environments we rebuilt our motor recently did it in frame and during that time we added a second alternator so this bus doesn't have a generator the only generator we have is the secondary alternator here which feeds an inverter system and then is plugged into the generator in inputs on the on the inverter setup that's the victor on components this allows us to drive and generate up to about 800 watts of power off of the system while we're driving anywhere so if you're doing a long drive day and the weather is bad it really does make a pretty significant improvement in power state of charge this is the air conditioning condenser unit here so there's the two circuits that come in there's the both of those heads inside are running here we generally don't run the air conditioning when we're driving just because the efficiency necessary or the output necessary to keep it cool while moving because of air leaks it's a big vehicle it tends to run the power down so maybe a future expansion right here with this extra pulley will be an engine driven air conditioned system my professional work teaches people how to be functional in teams potentially remotely and how to communicate more clearly and how to use tools and and processes that enable remote and distributed work environments so I maybe have a bit of rose tinted glasses about that but I do feel that you have to decide whether the role that you want to accept is one that is okay to work remote in the places that seem nice or also the places that are almost too expensive to afford when we look at the cost of a house and the cost of property and things like that it's just enormous ly expensive for a family of six to be able to get into a house I think that my future holds something along the lines of combining remote work with having a house or homestead or property that's remote enough that I can afford or I want to afford I think that's where the eventual solution for this will end up being it's it's a bit of a necessity but it's also by choice to say that we can be happy with much less and being able to gaze out the window and the terrible weather or to have all the doors and windows open and in really nice weather and just expand our space to the area around us is really a freeing there's a lot of ups and downs and I think that has brought us together as a family a lot closer finding that balance and getting everybody to work together it's been our challenge and our and our reward for doing this thanks for taking a little tour on our bus it's been our home for a while now and we've really put a lot of work into it to try to make it that I hope it inspires you to build something that fits your life and your lifestyle and is comfortable I'm always available for asking questions and things and from technical - perspective and as as Amanda as well Amanda runs our Instagram channel broccoli bus six you can just reach me at Erin Buckley on Instagram and we also have a blog baccala comm or broccoli bus comm eath either one goes the same place thanks for watching and I hope you enjoy your afternoon

Channel: Tiny Home Tours

Views: 1,401,448

Rating: 4.91787 out of 5

Keywords: tiny house, tiny house on wheels, living big in a tiny house, tiny house movement, tiny home, small house, small spaces, small house design, alternative living, architecture, affordable home, off the grid, small space living, tiny house life, diy tiny house, diy home, van life, school bus conversion, skoolie conversion, converted school bus, skoolie tiny house, bus conversion tour, school bus tiny house, off grid skoolie, off grid, tiny house build, tiny houses

Id: AoxVdvkfXEo

Length: 20min 39sec (1239 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 11 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/stabbyclaus]

I knew you needed something beefy to support those sort of appliances and wow did your undercarriage deliver. For a big family like yours, makes total sense but must have cost a pretty penny. Did you do the electrical install entirely yourself or relied on a solar service?

[u/gilliganphantom]

Incredible tour and you've built an absolute masterpiece. Very impressed by your very balanced blend of form and function and of course the execution. Also Chris at Tiny Home Tours is really stepping up his game!

[u/swisha2001]

If NASA & Airstream had a baby...very impressive!

[u/milesofangelo]

Neat build, love how you had a totally separate area for the kids to hang out. I was wondering, what did you change about the driver's seat console? I'd love to know what kind of controls you put up there to replace the old ones.

[u/hotsauce04]

Watched this last night. I told my wife this guy is meticulous and thought of every thing. Best bus build I've seen for sure!

[u/Garfield-1-23-23]

Fantastic build in every possible way. Among many things, your roof raise transition is perfect. I love the office conversion in the front, and kudos for having everybody riding in proper seats. Lots of good ideas for things, like that free-hose kitchen sink.

As someone not doing a roof raise, I can't believe the luxury of a storage shelf over your shower.

[u/WetBiscut]

Can you share more about the fire suppression system you have under the bus in the electrical cabinet?

[u/Baconshit]

This is an incredible build!

Did I miss all of your tank sizes? Curious what youre hauling around.

For grins too, what mileage does the bus get?