Our Guide to Bus Length | Choosing a School Bus Size for Your Conversion | Skoolie Square Footage

[Music] hey guys so today we figured we'd do a basically the definitive guide or our attempt at a definitive guide to bus lengths what factors go into choosing a bus based on length how much space do you need you know there are a lot of things to consider how long do buses get what are the common sizes we're hoping to dive into all of those things today Tiffany put this video together and she did an absolutely fantastic job with graphics and planning and everything on all of the research but the weather actually has turned in Colorado I think we're moving towards fall now it feels fantastic but it's making Tiffany feel a little under the weather because of her allergies so I'm on camera today but she's behind the scenes doing the work so in the two tiny house festivals that we've shown ad people seem to think that we have a full-size school bus we have a midsize bus school buses range anywhere in length from around 20 feet all the way up to 42 feet there are even some 45 of footers out there I haven't seen them but apparently they are limited to 45 feet and surely there are some out there a lot of auction websites are people that are selling the buses privately don't tell you or don't put in the listing how long the buses bumper-to-bumper which is really important information to have because of that because that's so uncommon to see the length there are a few ways that people have devised to sort of gauge bus lengths based off of just looking at a picture of it a lot of it has to do with windows it's not perfect there's no perfect way to look at a bus from an image without any measurements and say is that bus is exactly 42 feet long or whatever it may be but there are a few rules of thumb that could help you get an idea if the seller isn't telling you exactly how long it is the more or less best way that we've seen people use is basically looking at the windows so for every window on the side of the bus not including the driver's window you can add 28 inches roughly and that's also taking into account space between the windows after that you then have to ask yourself what kind of bus it is in terms of engine placement is it in a hooded dog nose like like a normal truck would be or is it a flat nose if it's a dog nose like a regular truck you're gonna add ten feet to whatever measurement you got from looking at the windows if it's a flat nose then you'll add about six feet to that but there are other things to consider one of those things probably the most major thing is the handicap door handicap door gets a little crazy it makes things extend but not every bus has a handicap door but for those that do it's kind of a nice fine because it sort of puts your bus into a mid-range that you could find really useful and adds it adds a little more junk in the trunk but not so much that it can be really hard to maneuver that was the case for our bus in anyway but it does sort of muck up the the window measuring issue in our case we measured from the very back of our last regular window to the very back of the bus so essentially measuring the entire handicap area and we found that that was around six feet so it's it's not that you necessarily add six feet to all of that you could look at the windows on the opposite side of the bus but it then things get weird because not all of the windows are the same size we have windows on our bus the the first window and the last window are fairly long and the other windows are different sizes and the emergency exit windows are different sizes but if you follow those parameters you can kind of get an idea of where you're at so we thought of some considerations that you might want to think about when you're looking at buses to build out what kind of campsites are you gonna fit into a lot of state and national parks have a maximum limit of 40 feet and of the campsites that have a maximum of 40 feet or 42 feet or unlimited they're only a select few of those so you may be fighting you know these large class a motor homes for their parking spaces another thing you need to consider is how often are you really going to be driving it if you're gonna buy a bus and park it somewhere then you probably want the longest available you can get but if you're gonna be driving it around a ton and you're not exactly keen on driving around a 40 foot monster consider that think about that you can get buses that are shorter that are a bit more maneuverable are you going to be towing a car are you gonna be adding a deck on the back to carry a motorcycle there is a many states in fact maybe all but I know some states have a maximum length for a you know for a particular vehicle including a tow if you're not towing anything you also need to consider how easy is it to park like at a grocery store or in a park or something like that another thing you need to ask yourself is how important is floorspace you know obviously with longer buses there's more floor space to work with but you know the exterior length may check all your boxes in terms of maneuverability where you can camp but it may not be long enough for you know you to navigate inside the bus if you have more than one person or if you have dogs or children that can be it can be difficult for us you know we have you know two codes an 80-pound or really 85 90 pound lab mix and he takes up a lot of space and so it was important for us to have room to be able to move around him something else to consider is that you know the longer bus you have the more materials it's gonna you're gonna use in order to convert it it also costs more fuel to move a longer bus around longer bus means it's a heavier vehicle and it requires that much more power to maneuver and also do you have space to convert a 42 foot long school bus you may only have room where you are to convert a smaller bus but even some of the places around that you could potentially hold it they may have a length limit so you know before going for that super long school bus that's 42 feet maybe look around and make sure you have some place to put it they can accommodate a bus at that length and then lastly and but perhaps most important is you know the ability to maneuver turning around you know for longer school buses with long wheel bases that means their turning radius is going to be more poorer than a shorter bus with a shorter wheelbase for people that are looking to boondock and longer length buses they have to consider the fact that you know down a forest road that's a dirt road trees on either side you may have to go a ways before you're even you even have the ability to turn around safely maybe not even at all and so you know smaller vehicles tend to lend themselves more to wild camping and dry camping not to say that you can't do that in 42 feet but you do have to be a little bit more careful about where you go and where you're able to get out of before getting yourself in a situation that's that's a little sketchy so obviously we only have our bus to judge off of and really that's not even a great example because we're not even living in it yet we're almost done with the build so in order to get a little more perspective and to ask some people that are already out there living to life we reached out to a few schools builds we've followed from the beginning and really love their builds but they also haven't come in a variety of sizes we reached out into these schools we asked a few questions first we asked what the bumper-to-bumper length was then we asked what the interior length is including living area so the actual living area of the bus so area that you can actually put furniture in and hang out in for extended periods of time usable area we then also asked them the approximate square footage of the interior of the bus and we also asked them for their own specific pros and cons as it relates to the length and size of their bus overall you have links to everybody we talked to in the description below and we're excited to give you the info so we'll start with eye on our bus so our bus is 31 feet long bumper to bumper that gives us about 25 feet on the interior living space and from the very back door all the way to the end or the river at the beginning of the engine cover the overall width of our bus is seven and a half feet roughly and so that translates to around 180 square feet of interior living space for us I think pretty much everybody's busses are gonna be around seven and a half feet wide so that measurement won't change but the overall length of everybody else is about certainly well we really like our bus so far Diane's been great you know it's a little bit tough for us to talk about intelligently because we're not living in her yet but from having her for two years from driving her around tiny house festivals camping and the overall build it's it's been fantastic we really like the front engine flat nose it does get hot and it is a little loud but it's really not that bad certainly not for me I'm the one driving Tiffany's gonna be driving behind me in the Subaru it's fine for me or the first person that we asked was Dean and his build the school II his build is very it's kind of similar to ours his overall length is very similar his bus length is 33 feet but that includes a rear deck and his bus is also a front-engine so that means a few different things his front wheels that he drives with are in front of him like in a normal truck or a normal car ours are behind the driver and so that means you have to drive it a little bit differently so Dean's list of pros and cons for his schooling are as follows Dean says the length of my bus is ideal and that it fits within two parking spaces front to back nice I have plenty of room to live comfortably even when it's raining outside I don't feel cabin fever and can get work done that's pretty valuable what I don't like is the height of 12 feet which keeps me from some fuel stations the length can be an issue when I get off the main road and go over some hills and which can make it scratch on the back end so those are great pros and cons for that length of bus so the next build we reached out to was VY Cara bus oh dang you guys the heather Nick and Myles have a bus that is 23 feet long on exterior so bumper-to-bumper 23 feet they have around 15 feet from the back of their steps to the back the bus which translates to around 120 square feet of living space so if I care of us has some lists of pros and cons there pros is that they really like the manoeuvrability and the parking that they're able to get because of their short wheelbase they say that it fits in most regular parking spaces without having to extend much further out which is pretty awesome so parking at grocery stores campsites really not an issue which is pretty great and they said after traveling for five months they don't want or need anything bigger their list of cons include the fact that they could even go smaller they want to hire clearance 4x4 vehicle and they do miss having a dishwasher which you may be able to accommodate in a longer vehicle the next person we reached out to is Wes over a transcend existence his bus transcendence is to do thirty four and a half foot original bumper-to-bumper school bus but he's done some modifications and has added it back deck on the back like Dean has so his is overall thirty nine and a half feet long with the rear deck that gives him 29 feet of interior length and around 220 square feet of livable space so as far as the pros and cons go the Wes told us for the size of his bus the pros is that it's a lot of space the deck allowance for him to carry his motorcycle around and makes for a pretty cool hangout area so it's actually big enough to like sit on the cons Wes says that he can't take it everywhere parking can be a hassle and that stealth camping is totally out of the question so we didn't get a chance to talk to anyone that was living in or using a 42-foot and you know full-length school bus but we tiffanie Illustrated a 42 foot flat nose just for comparison so we estimated that there's around 36 feet of interior living length which translates to roughly 270 square feet which is pretty big we also have a 45 foot City coach that we've Illustrated we're estimating 38 feet of interior living length there and we're also estimating 285 square feet of interior living space and again you know for those longer school buses and especially the city coaches the big one of the really big benefits there is that there's built in under storage which is pretty awesome we've even seen someone convert on articulating a city bus with an accordion connector in the middle and that's by bendy bus and so there's a link to them in the description below as well which is huge its enormous very cool so you can find an infographic on our blog if you go to our website wwlp.com and you can see some information that we have there that's sort of put together for you and we really want to thank everybody that we spoke to we want to thank West transcend existence Dean over at these school II Heather Nick and miles from vie Cara bus thank you guys so much we really appreciate you guys giving us information and giving us some perspective on your builds and what you liked what you might have done differently it's exciting and I think hopefully this is helpful for people for those of you that are looking for a school bus and how long it really needs to be to really fit your needs because it does matter and so we're hoping that this may be helpful for you guys all three of those builds that we spoke to do have a youtube channel so check their links down below they all produce really great content so definitely definitely give them a follow if you don't already so it 7e made these vector illustrations just for comparison but if you'd like one of your rig let us know there's some more information down at the bottom there's a link to get a little bit more information about how you can get a custom illustration of your rig so if you found this video helpful we really appreciate it if you like share subscribe we can found be found on patreon if you want to support us that way and yeah happy building I never know how to end these so we'll just end it chuckles crying I meant rushman your says if I carrot so the bike Carib us is 23 feet

Channel: Rolling Vistas

Views: 258,894

Keywords: bus house, bus home, skoolie, school bus conversion, bus conversion, tiny home, tiny house, tiny house on wheels, cabin on wheels, tiny cabin, rustic, diy RV, bus build, skoolie couple, artist couple, rv, motorhome, bus life, tiny living, travel, camping, rig, skoolie rig, bus rig, go tiny, minimalism, nomads, nomadic, road trip, bus length, bus size guide, guide to buying a bus, skoolie size chart, bus size comparison, school bus sizes

Id: BI7_E_-J0o0

Length: 15min 21sec (921 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 08 2018