Raised Roof School Bus Conversion Built To Be 100% Off The Grid - My DIY Forever Home

[Music] everybody this is Chris tiny-home tours in the off-grid Schooley so I mentioned before that I travel around in his school bus filming people in their tiny homes were actually at the 2019 bus fair so I'm gonna give you a quick tour of the school bus that I live and travel in full time so welcome to my bus this is Zeppelin - my first campervan I named it after Led Zeppelin it was a silver 1989 Dodge Explorer wanted to keep that going with the with a school bus conversion purposely I built this specifically to be off the grid hence the name the off-grid school II tons of water storage tons of food storage lots of solar I built this to where I can go out to the forest the desert wherever I wanted to go and if I wanted to be able to park be in one spot and not need to move the rig whatsoever need no more supplies and now that I have a tow car that's going to be much more doable to where I can actually go out and explore check out the different cities and towns that I'm in but what we'll do is start with the captain seat this is actually out of my class a I bought a Class A to live in and travel in full-time spent summers up in Alaska winters in the lower 48 when I sold it the new owner wanting one of different seats and I was totally fine with that because I knew that I needed these captain's chairs and some people get lucky and find them for cheap other people you know find them on eBay for 3/4 of what they cost new and they're you know a little tore up so I was happy to repurpose this this was actually the driver's seat out of my class a swivels around to the front for passengers and mostly what it's been used for is my main office area being that I work from the road having a place to work be able to work online make a residual remote income was one of the main goals with with everything that I was doing so having a comfortable place to work was a high priority we ended up using butcher block for the desk as well as the kitchen so with this particular desk I have one area set up right here and then I have a secondary desk a little bit further back eventual I'm gonna get an office chair to put right here I'm still trying to figure out how I'm gonna secure that right now I just have a foldable chair that I use the cushion Onix it's not exactly too comfortable and I got a 27-inch iMac that I have on a Amazon wall mount which has been working fantastic so I'm able to face it going forward if I want to work if I'm on the couch and just want to watch Netflix I have that option and then I can swivel it to the main desk area and be able to use the iMac as well as my laptop this secondary desk area actually folds down so if I have people in the bus if I have a bunch of people over I can fold this down put a couple chairs here so you'd have three at least three spots for the couch as well as the captaincy and a couple chairs here so one of the main reasons for a school bus conversion was its weight capacity this bus has a thirty six thousand pound weight capacity right now with the full build 200 gallons of fresh water full tank of diesel it was around 31,000 pounds the class I couldn't I couldn't add what I wanted to I couldn't add more fresh water to be off the grid I couldn't build in a desk area that used 3/4 plywood or inch and a half butcher block the class days are you know those big rectangular RVs and once you fill up the water once you fill up the the fuel in those typically you only have about 1,200 to 1,500 pounds you can play with and that includes all your personal belongings that includes any additions that you do to the particular rig so we put in a wood floor in that and that was an extra three or four hundred pounds so that was you know a quarter of your extra weight that you could play with with the bus I was able to go in and use the best materials that built this bus to be my home for the next 10-15 years at least you know I have no real desire to buy a home unless I buy it to rent out you know I love being mobile I love being able to customize things so that's why I went with the school bus because even the walls walls are all 3/4 everything that's here's all 3/4 I wanted to to last I wanted it to to be my home for the foreseeable future so being that I film a lot on the road have tons of hard drives I think I have about 11 external hard drives in here this is just extra storage in here for pencils wires just quick access if I'm getting work done with a computer I can just grab whatever hard drive I need whatever wire I need it's all in here ready to go I have a whiteboard up here just to keep notes if I'm listening to a podcast about making money on the road if I'm watching a YouTube video and something strikes me if I want to go to a friend has an idea for a video for me I can actually just write it down right here it's in front of me every day I see it every day and if I do get caught up with my work and I'm looking for something else to do I can just look up here look through the list and see what's the next project that I want to tackle what project I want to start working on so that's been great for writing notes I also got these blinds from simple blinds you have the complete blackout and then you also have an ambient light option honestly I don't really use them too often but if I do leave the rig I'll close these and that way nobody can really see into the bus whenever I'm gone a little bit further back I have this this little storage unit it is actually made for canned goods I was gonna use it and put it on top of the fridge but I'd ended up adding some storage up there for other stuff so now I'm using it for my notebooks my laptop always start my day with productivity planner just my goals and how much time I'm going to spend on them five minute journal you can get both these on Amazon the five minute journal is just essentially what you're thankful for what you hope to accomplish for the day again as you can see I like to write things down and then reflect back on them it helps me with my work process and it helps me be productive so I highly highly suggest you check those two pieces of material out if you're looking to work remotely because it helps to keep everything in mind also you can see this particular window is open in this living room area I wanted to keep it nice and airy and open I spend about 85% of my time in here so I can open all these windows just prop them open and when I'm sitting here working you know it just really opens up the area that's why with this side with this upper I ended up having it put a little bit further back just to keep this you know really large airy open when I first started considering building the bus I was gonna do uppers pretty much a foot out on both sides and I'm really glad I didn't do that I love the way that it just feels like an apartment in here whenever you walk in and also when we did the roof raised I installed a 95 Jeep Cherokee rear glass up front which brings in a lot of light a lot of natural light I hardly ever have the lights on in here just because there's so much natural light coming in so this upper is just kind of a catch-all easy gear storage drones up there running backpack extra gear tripod my dogs treats and food like I said just quick access up here in the front we have just kind of a knick-knack area again if I find some cool rocks if people give me things on the road just like to have those on display and down below that I have a dog fence bubble window so whenever we drive my dog typically sits on the couch he can stick his head out that window and if I have any passengers riding with me they can actually stick their head out I go about 60 miles per hour that's about as fast as I go on this this bus can go way way faster but I like to you know kind of take it easy on the engine I want this engine to have a nice happy life for the for the time that I have it so a lot of people pass me so you can actually stick your head out get the views and watch all the semis and everything pass as you go through right here I have a pull-out couch it turns into a bed I will actually go through stents to where I will just instead of sleeping in the bed in the back I'll just pull this out and sleep here and with this 95 Jeep Cherokee rear window as you're laying here especially when you're out in the middle of nowhere you're able to look at the Stars you're able just to hang out and then when you wake up I wake up around 5:00 typically every morning just move the pillows to the side here and then get my laptop get some work done and watch the Sun come up it's it's an amazing feeling to to be able to do that I do have a little bit of storage under here right now it's just extra parts that need to be installing the bus this bus is still work in progress as you can see from the ceiling but I want to eat on the road and be able to film for tiny home tours and my other blog and you know build business connections and all that stuff that was way more important to me than finishing all the small little details but we're slowly but surely getting that done I notice there's a ladder here it goes up to my roof deck cap both emergency exits for access to the roof spend a decent amount of time up there it's it's nice to be able to go out to the middle of nowhere be able to get a better view up there and just hang out I also bring a chair up there in my laptop get some work done if I'm doing the planner in the morning or what I hope to achieve grab a cup of coffee go up there sit write out my plans for the day and then get to work but that's been a fantastic addition it does fold down the bus right now with the roof raised and the highest part of that roof deck this bus is 12 foot 9 inches which is the exact same as the Class A that I had and you can see the cow skull right there kind of goes with the aesthetic Jim and Debbie from life is a joy their chain will be linked down below they helped me a lot with building the the bus Jim help me do the roof raise in the interior build they had that cow skull and they were moving out of their house they didn't what to do with it so it's kind of a memento as a reminder of working with them on the bus so moving back underneath here is a five cubic foot chest freezer again built this bus to be off the grid I can go to Costco I can go to Trader Joe's fill up on the food that I want and be able to store it in there so again if I wanted to go out a little nowhere I have more than enough food storage to last me you know way longer than a month and a half two months I also spend summers up in Alaska typically this is the first time in seven years I haven't gone to Alaska during the summer but just the salmon runs up there you can spend a week if the runs good and I can completely fill this thing up with wild caught sockeye salmon go on charters up there halibut rockfish it fill up super quick so it'd be nice to have extra storage so when I'm done up there in Alaska I can bring that all back down also going to organic farms be able to buy a quarter of a cow or buy some some meat from a responsible farm be able to store it in there instead of having to go to the store and support that type of farm and I'd love to do that sets another reason why I went with this chest freezer this butcher block just pops up slides out opens then I have full access to all my extra food in there went with a murky water filter went with this because on the road it is hard from time to time to to find water that you know is good I do have two hundred gallons of fresh water but what I do is just fill this with the sink this is the the royal Berkey it's three and a half gallons and you know between my dog and I this will last us two or three days and it's been fantastic I've really enjoyed the Berkey and on the front of the chest freezer here I just have these metal plates this is from dis plate and I'm able to change them out but it just really fits the aesthetic of the bus I really love how this turned out it was a lot of engineering a lot of trying to figure out how this was actually going to work how I was going to attach the butcher block but it turned out fantastic I really enjoy it so with the transition last up there when I originally was looking into options I didn't know if I was gonna add that glass up there and west from transcend existence as well as Jim and Debbie from life is a joy they both had the glass up there and they both suggested I do that so there's two windows that you can use that I know of for certain you have the Nissan Odyssey minivan that really fits the contour of the transition whenever you put it up there when I went to the scrapyard both that they had two of them but one already had the back glass removed and the other one was cracked so another option Jim did the 95 ish Jeep Cherokee and they had plenty of those in the scrapyard so I just took it off we cut it up and then we put tubular steel frame around it welded it in and it's been fantastic and also I went with the 95 Jeep Cherokee glass because getting going back and forth to Alaska there's a lot of rocks that are gonna be thrown at you and if that does crack if that does break I don't want to be searching around everywhere for a new glass that's a very common thing to find in scrap yards so I'm very glad I went with that and it brings a lot of natural light in here so the floor just went with the home depot special it was one of their cheaper options I ended up securing it down with liquid nails underneath a lot of people do floating floors I didn't wanna do that I just wanted it down not moving and so far it's been fantastic I take this bus on some tricky roads sometimes to get to chutes and the floor has not moved whatsoever with these rear engine Diesel's the fuel sending unit is right here I opted not to cover that up so that can just easily be pulled up and I can get to the sending unit for the for the diesel tank and again just building this to be available to modify in the future because my rear wiring harness runs from right here I had to extend it which is is back here this is removable and then back behind this upper that plate is also removable so as technology improves if I want to add new things I have a run that goes all the way to the front to the back in 12-volt even though about half those wires aren't used anymore I can always piggyback onto those and I have access to that throughout the entire length of the bus so I got an extending ladder from Amazon it's been good obviously to access the roof I didn't put a ladder on the outside cause I didn't want random people going up there so the only way to access the roof unless you scale the side of the bus is this ladder [Music] so this is a little bit of a bigger bus but still it's nice to have a ladder that folds all the way down and it just stores right above the fridge has a lip in there doesn't move around that's been working awesome and then I have 1700 watts of solar up on the roof I do good up there and clean the the panel's a decent amount you can access the front of the panel's from this side and then the back emergency exit I can I can climb up through the rear emergency exit clean the rear panels but the middle panels are kind of hard to get to I can get the ladder out put it on the side of the bus and I'm able to clean all my panels this is also another gift from Jim and Debby from life is a joy while we're building the bus I had a real estate side gig and it's a little tough from time to time and a little hard to get motivated so I would stare at this poster the road to success as I was getting yelled at trying to get leads to the brokerage I was working with so that's one of the big pieces of the bus that still reminds me today to get after it and get some work done so welcome to the kitchen as I was building the bus the kitchen kind of morphed a little bit doing these tours I learned from other people I saw what they were doing why they did them and it you know kind of adjusted the build but we ended up going with a angled sink I got a workstation sink this has been fantastic for actually saving water so I'll let this fill up for a bit I might be making an excuse for not wanting to do dishes but I'll let this fill up for a bit and be able to reuse the water for soaking dishes be able to use as little water as possible again that's that's the biggest constraint for me being off the grid even though I have 200 gallons if we're talking about a month month and a half you know that really starts at up every single drop counts but this sink has been fantastic came with a cutting board dish dryer this has been working really really well for me just a typical faucet from Amazon and went with these colorful Mexican tiles that once again I got from Amazon as you can see the aesthetic of the bus is dark colors with stainless kind of that dichotomy so it's nice to add a little bit of color through here really glad that I went with that found a vintage stove on Craigslist this has been working really well for me some people are lucky like me and find something like this for $40 on Craigslist and it works great some people will get a vintage stove and they cut their butcher block they cut their countertop and they put it in and it doesn't work so knock on wood that will not happen to me but this has been working great four burners with an oven the oven was never used when I bought it and I use the oven all the time this has been working great and just a fan vent up above three quarter uppers right now I'm still trying to figure out where everything is going to go essentially I got to the point to where I was ready to get on the road start working and I just threw everything in the cabinets and I still haven't gone through and organized everything I've been going nonstop since I've been on the road so it's a little messy on the inside but this has been working great like I said 3/4 built to last this particular storage area up top this is my pep wave system so again working from the road Internet is very important so I got this pep web system that takes two cell phone SIM cards I have a Verizon unlimited plan and an AT&T unlimited plan and the pep way will actually distinguish which one has the best service I have a booster up top that will bring in the it'll it'll boost the service and then it spits out a Wi-Fi signal that I can have a guest on I have a 5g network and then I have Wi-Fi that I can use on cell phones this works fantastic whenever I go to a new spot nobody else has internet they don't have any service they're able to jump on to my Wi-Fi and with a if I log on through my computer I can actually limit people to certain gigs so if somebody gets on my Wi-Fi and starts downloading you know a bunch of stuff and my internet slows down I can actually throttle them back and then give them a limit to how many gigs they can use on my Wi-Fi so this has been a great system eventually I'm going to be making a video on the full set up it's 1% custom Aaron from broccoli busts their channel be linked down below as well in their Instagram he had a similar system he helped me put this together and that has been a lifesaver many times when I'm out in the middle of nowhere I have no service and I kicked this on and I have really fast internet so that's been great so down underneath the stove we have lower storage child blocks on there that's just a lot of different cooking gear just pots and pans underneath here is pullout trash I have two smaller bins and just other like trash bags my laundry detergent glass cleaner and then I also have a seven gallon electric water heater I invested very heavily and my solar and batteries I don't know if I'd make the same choice again so for example if it's raining out and it's cold and I forget to turn the hot water heater on or the batteries are low it draws a lot of power and if I could do it over again I would probably go with it with Bosto setup well boss so actually lost their patent to those systems so you can actually get a cheaper Chinese version it's a hundred and sixty bucks and it works just as well and it's ran off diesel so if I could do it over again I'd probably go with that setup because not only would I heat the bus I could also heat my water and they're super efficient but that's lessons learned over here I have a residential fridge Maytag fridge about five cubic feet of storage in the freezer about 12 to 13 in the fridge space just go again to Costco Trader Joe's fill this thing up or go out boone dock and I'm good to go for a while I originally planned on getting a smaller fridge and again once I decided to go with lithium batteries this became more of an option doesn't draw that much power and it's been it's been working really really well for me I have some artwork that I have up here because I've got a little bit of a dent in it when I left to hit the road to start filming I was a little excited and I forgot to put a cleat on the fridge and I was smart enough to curb this and the fridge came over and met the sink and we'll just say the sink won this stainless-steel sink from Revati it was solid it didn't even leave a mark in this thing and the fridge got pretty dented but I am totally okay with that I'm not huge like aesthetics don't really matter that much to me it's just just a story but the fridge is been working great then I have extra storage up above the fridge as well for you know just random things right now until I get things organized so I cook a decent amount so I do intermittent fasting high fat low carb so I typically don't eat until about 11:00 or noon and it's usually eggs bacon you know sauerkraut I eat a very large meal my first meal then I have a small snack later in the day but I cook pretty much every single day I hardly eat out the goal of this bus was to live simply be able to save money so everything included with my lifestyle right now typically cost me anywhere from fifty to sixty dollars a day that's vehicle insurance health insurance all my internet like every single expense that I have is anywhere from around fifty to sixty dollars a day so being able to cook meals obviously saves money it's way more healthy for you and yeah I cook a ton that's why that's why the kitchen is fairly a fairly large part of the bus just because that that was one of the cornerstones of me living on the road cheaply moving back you can see my spice rack the upside-down glasses are drinking glasses obviously the spices are all right here I need to take this masking tape off and actually get some labels and have somebody that doesn't have handwriting of a toddler to actually label all these for me but they are labeled and they just unscrew and then I'm able to you know use the spices for whatever cooking that I'm doing and the right here ready to go up here is my the entrance for the solar and this is a stainless steel plate that my friend Billy from nickle handcrafted in Phoenix made for me it just unscrews and I also have a solar cutoff switch up there too if there's something happening with the panel's if there's something happening with the solar system I have a complete cut off up there that I can just go up there turn it off and then there's no more power coming to my system but this has been working great I actually got the idea to use these upside-down mason jars as drinking glasses from a tour I did and it just it holds them in place you don't have any glasses that are gonna break that are moving around and it actually looks pretty cool too so I'm really glad that I went with this the spice rack set up and then I typically just leave my toothbrush toothpaste deodorant first thing I do in the morning obviously brush my teeth just use the kitchen sink for that and yeah this the setups been fantastic so with cooking just have this exhaust fan went with max air I had a couple fantastic fans in the Class A I do like these better I know there's a big rivalry going on out there but max air I've had both it works great for me I also have one over the bed I'll I'll show you as well but whenever I'm cooking I can either open the emergency exit window right there turn the fan bin on or just pop this open and exhaust all the smoke from the food further back in the kitchen being that we went with the angle sink there was a dead area right here just got a little spice rack just a lot of hot sauces essential oils that I store in here cleaning products just trying to utilize every square inch of space here in the bus and moving further back we have the pantry area this is all dry food storage in here again I need to go through organize everything so far it's just been on the road going nonstop but part of being off the grid is having enough food having enough food to sustain you food to cook and this has been working really well dry food storage up here so down below we have utensils for cooking pots and pans so Jim from life is a joy had a idea to keep your drawers from opening and you actually use these thumb screws it's basically a little pad that you use for furniture to keep it from scraping your floor and a washer so I have this set up and it's actually threaded in here and I'm able to tighten this down before I leave and the drawers don't open and then I'm able to just store them in there and it keeps everything closed no drawers are coming open so I actually have one for the uppers up here all down through here as well as back in the closet of the bedroom so for me to go through the bus get everything set up the Berkey goes into the sink it takes me about five minutes to get this bus ready to hit the road and also with the iMac I have the same system to where it's threaded underneath I have that thumb screw holds down the iMac from moving while I Drive so Aubree I did a video with her it'll be linked down below as well she made this awesome little leather knife setup for me this has been working really well again I cook non-stop so having all of my knives ready to go a lot of times this will actually just be stored right here ready to go so moving back into this area this was just a dead space that I really didn't know what to do with and I wanted to have an area to do yoga I do yoga I work out in here I can show you back there where I do pull-ups essentially I have a three day schedule where I'll stretch one day run one day bodyweight exercises and rest day and every four days that resets so this actually comes down and then I have extra space and then it also comes back up so this is a standing desk area a lot of times like I work a lot on the road I'll screw my laptop over here I have a view out this window and it's been working working great I love having this setup and another dry erase board basically just all my notes everything I need to get done the girls from the broccoli bus they like to come in and actually use my dry erase markers and draw pictures for me so they have a permanent spot in the bus where this is their area whenever I meet up with them on the road eventually I'm gonna get a couple of hooks a couple stools this could be a dining area as well if I don't want to eat where I work and you know just look out the views to wherever I'm parked so we do have a light up above whenever I do the ceiling I'm debating on just redoing all the lights and just using these as speaker wire so not too sure what to do with that but just light up above that also controls up into the bedroom area which I'll show you in a second and then with the bathroom I did a full tiled shower it's a 32 by 32 first time I ever did any tiling that was an interesting experience it turned out turned out pretty good got pretty much all the tile everything from Habitat for Humanity if you're thinking about doing a bus Habitat for Humanity is an amazing spot these bluish grayish tiles somebody at Home Depot left them out in the rainstorm and they couldn't sell them so they had pallets and pallets of those where they were selling them for half of what Home Depot was but since they had so many they were doing another half off sale on top of the half off so I was able to get a lot of tile for cheap really wanted to just have a full shower just because like I said I work out a lot I hate going to bed sticky that was a priority for me to have a decent shower so glad I went with that and then went with the nature said composting toilet they are a bit expensive but it's nice to not have to worry about trying to find a bathroom I did the class a thing the black tanks always happened to worry about that was just a pain this with me by myself with the solids I have to change it every month and a half and it's not that bad at all like some people might be grossed out about it but it's it's not that bad especially if you're only doing it you know once every month and a half two months and then just an upper right here I don't have much storage in there yet and then more storage up above that's just clean utensils some soaps and this bathroom size is actually modeled off my class a that I had just because I really liked how small it was but how functional it was so this is almost identical to the size of the class a bathroom and then for the door for now eventually I'll probably get a barn door some sort of sliding door but I was at the van life app meetup and won this and a raffle so right now that's about all you need and then I have a another window over there with a blind that you can also open and bathroom has been great a lot of people when I go to meetups people that have smaller rigs they'll come over and shower still use the bathroom it's nice to be able to provide that for people that are on the road because I started in a my very first van was just a conversion van that I took all the seats out and put the bed down and built some cabinets in so I know how it is not having a shower I know how it is not having a bathroom so it's nice to have this to provide for people and then on this side I have a stainless steel back with a Dickinson marine heater as I said before if I could do it over again I might have gone with the Bosto but the reason why I went with this and I didn't realize what Bosto heaters had this is this actually has a heating coil in it the floor has 1/2 inch PEX tubing through it and the idea for that is to have a radiant floor heating system because with these buses what happens with a lot of them is you can heat obviously the heat rises and then the floor will stay cold a friend of mine has a wood stove in his West from transient existence and his dog's water bowl would be frozen but it would be 65 70 degrees up top so I wanted to utilize as much heat as possible and obviously this will heat the bus but also it'll have that residual heat coming up from the floor and that will help me keep this thing on low this Dickinson marine heater this is the Alaska version at 15,000 BTU on low it only consumes 1.3 gallons per 24 hours and it's a gravity-fed system that's why this is sectioned out here this will be a removable diesel tank that will gravity feed down into here this is not hooked up yet another one of those things where I was just trying to get on the road the next video I do the bus will be you know completely done and show you how that works so I went with the rear engine diesel with the roof raised specifically for the idea of lofting up the back of the bus underneath here are my lithium batteries and then behind the batteries further down is 200 gallons of fresh water again being off the grid water is very important and then also storage underneath the bed so I have two steps here just with some extra storage into the step and then as we come up we get to Kobe's home this is my pup co buck not many dogs have a kennel built into an RV especially a dog this big he's a husky Shepard so Shepherds are typically good with smaller spaces as long as they're with their people so that's why I went with this breed and he he loves the road being able to meet new dogs being able to go explore he doesn't actually spend too much time in here I don't really leave him in there he usually just sleeps on the couch and he'll come in here from time to time but it's not really utilized too much but if somebody does come over and they're scared of dogs come back night-night I can just have him go in there they don't have to worry about you they don't have to worry about the pup so going back into the bedroom area emergency exit right here this I'm really really glad that I kept this emergency exit one like I said I can go up there clean the solar panels but this just adds so much light during the day I honestly don't ever hardly use my lights in this bus at all because I typically go to bed around 9:00 and especially during the summer by the time I go to bed it's still a little light out so all natural light and the buses I said before this has been awesome closed storage in here don't really hang too much stuff up Dean from the Schooley he actually just sold his school bus but I did a tour of his rig and he had this divider from Amazon and what he did is he actually rolled up his shirts and I could hardly fit all my shirts in here and I just got this from Amazon it was like 14 bucks I just rolled my shirts up and here my pants down below and just added a ton more space in here and I don't really pay attention to what I wear a lot I actually have the same clothes I have seven pairs of this exact type of pants I have three of these types of shirts so a lot of times I'd literally just grab a shirt without even thinking about it throw it on and then I'm out for the day so that has been fantastic kind of a grab all junk drawer right here just random stuff meds for the pup an old iPod I hard use anymore loose change just kind of at the end of the day when I have some in my pocket I throw it in here then we have storage all through here all drawers a lot of wires and gear storage running shorts first-aid kit some of his meds flea and tick all that good stuff again thumbscrews utilized all through here so they don't move gimble ram gear mounts outdoor gear just tons of storage through here another closet area up through here pullout bins this is some of my heavier gear like winter gear some athletic pants you know pj pants all that good stuffs here and then with a laundry i have a pull-out laundry basket throw my laundry in there and then when i go to the laundromat it has a bag in there another Amazon purchase to wear I'll just wash the bag as well and that just slides right in there and I still haven't devised a system to keep these two closed the way that the cabinets are built there's no way to thread something in there so I'm still trying to figure that out I do have some magnets in there but they don't really hold it closed seconds I could just get a heavier Duty magnets so I need to figure that one out and then moving back into the bedroom quick gear access if I want to grab any quick gear these are open face never had any issues with anything falling out and then I have a vintage map down here with epoxy I let the epoxy freeze I think so this has been hardening for the last two months or so actually this is the first time I've touched it to where it's not sticky up right in that corner I got excited there because my camera bag this has been with me for eight years Pelican bag it's built specifically to have the Pelican bag fit in there so again quick access my camera gears and hearing through my laptop in here this goes with me everywhere when I'm filming so I wanted to have a secure place to where that can go and I can pull it in and out that's actually really exciting this is literally the first time I've ever been able to do that without getting epoxy on my finger so we're we're getting there then I have my solar readouts went with battleborn batteries if you're interested in those those will be linked down below as well Victor on MPPT charge controllers the 156 TS I have two of those and then a 3000 watt pure sine wave inverter and then a a solar cutoff switch again having those redundant systems to where if something's happening I can turn things off I got a color control monitor from Victor on that shows my wattage coming in my AC loads my DC loads and I can also hook up the power if need be I'm eventually gonna get an AC on here so I might be getting a generator just in case again having the pup I can withstand it but it's not fair to have the pup overheating in a rig so we did go with with an AC in the AC unit is going to be mounted right here in the center that's going to be happening soon to uppers on both sides of the bed to lowers on both sides of the bed with a shelf on each side and like I said before there's storage underneath the bed it just pulls up I have a block that holds the bed open we didn't do hydraulic lifts just because I didn't want that pressure pushing on the side of the bed and I can lift it up perfectly fine without any issues so that that's been working pretty well so the bed itself is a queen bed I went with nest bedding it's super super comfortable no issues whatsoever so one thing I designed with the bedroom is two windows on both sides that I can open up as well as the fan up top so say if it's hot can open up both windows on the side kick this fan on to actually pull the air out and it will pull in cool air from the side and also there's the option with the two fans I can have one fan bringing air in one fan out but being that whenever it is warm i just opened the emergency exits and what i can do is bring air in the warm air comes out the emergency exits and that keeps it fairly temperature controlled just the way i have it and then here in the rear kept the emergency exit so i can open this up prop it open and that allows a lot more air in as well and when you're out in the middle of nowhere it is nice to you know you can just put your head here kind of look out the back look at the stars and still got some some wiring to do i still got to get all the ceiling figured out but that's a work in progress so I actually have three smoke detectors in this bus one over the living room one over here the bed and one underneath with the batteries if anything's happening down there obviously I need to know something's happened with those lithium batteries it's an amazing technology but you do have to be mindful I actually got a co2 fire extinguisher as well it's about the only thing that will put out a lithium battery fire I just have to be really careful with that because co2 it can they can kill you so if something were to happen with the batteries obviously open this up and then just lift up this particular storage area so hey you hooked up the storage area where the batteries are I have quick access to the batteries I have a cut-off switch for the batteries as well as well as fuses down there just in case something were to happen being being that you have that much power going on down there it is important to to monitor that and keep that you know in a safe situation as I mentioned multiple times before this rig the main purpose is to be completely off the grid that's why I invested in this much lithium batteries got 900 amp hours of lithium batteries in here so far I have not had the batteries go all the way down except once where it was cloudy a day or two before and then the place I was filming where they had me park I was underneath the tree so I was only getting solar for maybe 2 or 3 hours a day and I was doing a lot of editing on the iMac and I wasn't paying attention and the batteries got fairly low but the next day I just kind of cut back on my power and everything was fine it kicked right back on and since then this has been a phenomenal power bank for me I'm really happy with with the way the battle boards are set up and once again my friend Billy with nickel handcrafted built me some some battery trays that hold them in place and then that just screws into the floor and that's been working really really well for me so I went with lithium it's definitely more of an investment lead acid batteries you only have about half the capacity these can go down to 20% of their capacity and charge right back up with no issues if you do that with the lead acid variety you pretty much smoked your batteries there they're done so again I built this to be my home for the next 10-15 years these batteries have a projected lifespan of 10 to 15 years so it was just more of an initial investment to have the option to not ever worry about my power like I can set this up pay the upfront cost and then not have to worry about it again so welcome to the roof deck as I mentioned before these rails fold down I use again another threaded system it threads down holds these in place so they're not rattling around and wanted to go with a little bit higher roof deck some of my friends might have an extra beer to a night so it's nice to have the safety up here and like I said I'll just bring a chair up here hang out get a awesome view and that's been working really really well it was one of those things where I was debating on just going with solar throughout the roof or putting a roof deck up here I'm really glad I went with the roof deck that is the cellphone booster right there that's put that up top of the bus that brings in the cell signal which then transmits the signal back behind me I have ten hundred and seventy watt panels easy RV solar panels the original plan was mounting the panels on top here and then when the decks down they'd get full Sun but if I was up here and lifted it up it would actually be very detrimental to my solar system so we ended up moving the panel's from here to the center because my original thought was just having a walkway that I can walk up and down clean the panel's but that didn't they didn't work out that way so again I have access to the front three panels right here and then I can jump up in the back clean those panels off slower systems been working fantastic as you can see I have one bank on the right one on the left the only thing that is difficult now is the Sun is obviously over in that direction this Bank will be getting a lot more power than this side in the morning and vice-versa midday they are about equal so that's a little bit of a detriment but it could also help out if I am saying winter months I can angle a bus a certain way and I'll actually get more Sun than all the buses as you can see that are just flat panels here but that's been more than enough solar for me like I said before and then on the rear of the bus I actually have a mini split unit it's already on the bus the systems just not hooked up I don't have the head unit on yet I'm actually probably gonna be doing that this upcoming weekend and we're gonna see if the solar can keep up with that and eventually I probably will do a generator I'm gonna be welding on underbase storage on the side if I could change another thing about the bus is getting a bus that had the under base doors already I have one bay and I had planned on just doing the under base storage in the beginning we ran out of time hit the road so now it's one of those things where I don't have the under base storage now so if you're thinking about a school II think about Activity buses with activity buses they don't have as much stop and go traffic and they have the storage underneath I clean the panel's probably once every month it's been raining more recently so they kind of clean themselves especially with the angle on the side rain will hit it clean them off naturally the only two panels I really have to be mindful of or the two Center ones because they are flat but typically when it rains it just cleans them off anyways one more thing with the deck up here this is for an umbrella this screws in to hold it in place didn't have my underbase storage set up is taking up too much room when I go back to Indiana where I'm storing it right now I'll have that up there so if I bring my laptop up here it's too sunny I can put the umbrella up here bring a chair up here and then just hang out so this is the driving apartment so this is a 2002 Bluebird all-american rear-engine as I mentioned before I got this particular set up because of the lofted bed area in terms of driving it it took me a little while to get used to but every single rig that I get it's always a progression the first Class B I got it was a little bit bigger as about 19 feet so I was nervous driving that then I got a Class A and then this as well but once you get acclimated once you have a real idea of how long this is and what the turning radius is and how it works driving it becomes a lot better I recently got a tow car so now I'm to the next stage of trying to figure out my turning radius how to drive it with a tow car cuz you can't back up with with the setup that I have it's not on a dolly it's not on the trailer and with the roadmaster tow kit that I have I can't back up so I'm learning that right now it is a little nerve nerve wracking from time to time but it's good to go get around eight miles to the gallon has a 150,000 miles on it right now I bought it with a hundred and thirty got this bus from auction for about three thousand dollars Allison thirty sixty transmission and the Cummins 8-3 combination is just fantastic so if you take care of those you keep an eye on the floods you don't push the engine too hard it's an amazing setup going up and down hills is not too bad as well you've got to go slow with this Allison thirty sixty it's an automatic transmission but you can manually shift up and down so for example if I have a steep grade it's a six speed I have the sixth gear unlocked with this bus I'll bust this down to 2nd or 3rd gear depending on the grade and just go up the hill at 2030 miles per hour just keeping an eye on my temperature because as you drive these you're constantly keeping an eye on your lights your idiot lights as well as the temperature of the bus so that's one thing with with a school bus it's different than any rig I ever had I constantly keep an eye on the temperature I have a easy RV TPMS kit tire pressure monitoring system this is for the tow car as well as the bus it keeps an eye on the pressure the temperature so you know obviously the front steer tires it's very important to know that your tires are healthy and you're not gonna have any issues if you're going down the road you have a blowout on one of these front tires it's not good and also with the tow car even my v10 class a gas engine if you give a tow car back there and a tire blows you can be dragging that thing and not have any idea and that could be a huge issue but with this I'm able to keep track of all my tires make sure that that's good to go up here I have an exterior light monitor the bus did not come with a stereo they took that out before I bought the bus so I just use this for storage for my receipts I keep all my gas receipts anything to do with the bus whether it be buying drill bits or whatever I keep all my receipts being that I do travel for work it's really important to keep all that stuff and this is just extra storage up here this particular bus did not come with many options so all the switches over here are pretty much not useful anymore we do have a fan that I can kick on the rest of the buttons are actually for the school bus function so that was the emergency light on top that you have to take off legally when you get a bus different controls for the stop signs and everything's over here which I don't use anymore did reconnect the heater and that actually goes back to keeping an eye on the temperature so some people will just completely delete their their lines from their engine to the front for the heater but I decided to route mine underneath the bus and what that does is if I'm in a hot environment if the engine is getting hot I can just kick the heater on so the coolant runs from the engine all the way to the front to the heater core I'm able to kick this heat on and it actually cools the engine down because that that dispersion of heat from using the heater will actually cool cool via the rear engine which has been very helpful whenever I'm trying to climb grades and it's pretty pretty warm out be I overall I love driving this thing took me about three weeks to a month to actually get excited when I started you know when I would go to drive because like I said at first I was nervous it's a 40 foot bus it's hard to park from time to time it's you got to drive it a different way going through cities and towns but now it's just like driving any other car I can hop in here turn the engine on and ready to go so up here I do I did keep the mirror that the school bus driver uses to keep an eye on the children back when this was a school bus but I now use this to keep an eye on everything as I'm driving so what I'll do before I drive is just take a peek in the mirror make sure that I have everything buttoned down it's just one last check and if there is some noise going on back there I actually don't have to look back I can just move the mirror check out everything and this is actually the only mirror in the bus I don't really pay attention to what I wear whatsoever so it's not like I'm checking myself out so yeah it's the only mirror in the bus I have do what you can't written on here if you watch YouTube you probably know about Casey nice that he made an amazing video it'll be linked down below but basically this whole generation of youtubers just getting out there and getting after it it was an amazing video and whenever I was getting a little a little questioning on doing the YouTube thing and just you know kind of burnout I'd always just watch that video and then fire me right back up so just a nice reminder do what you can't I love seeing that it's one of my one of my philosophies now above the entrance I have my collection of stickers every school II typically has their collection of stickers being that I film for tiny home tours there's a lot of the people that I film they give me their stickers and essentially or eventually what I want to do is just have this entire front school bus area covered in stickers on the ceiling and just pictures and different things people give me on the road the front of the bus is the only part of the bus that I wanted to keep a little stock I still have a lot of the stickers from the school district I got this from the West Palm Beach School District in Florida for example 80% of Palm Beach County teens are alcohol free so I just kept all this stock stuff up here I'm probably gonna keep this stock floor the only real addition I did make up here was a little shelf that I built for shoes I do a lot of trail running once I get back in the flow now I have a tocar over are we going to different gyms playing basketball playing racquetball so workout shoes running shoes and then just day-to-day shoes everything lives up here I also have these rubber gloves being that I typically fill this up at truck stops those diesel pumps are actually very very dirty a lot of times they have diesel on them so I'll just use those gloves to fill up the bus if you are thinking about a school II typically the diesel fill is on the passenger side so I found truck stops to be really useful because what you can do is go in pay your cash you just unhook the pump on the driver's side which is where it's typically at you just sit that down then go over to the satellite station you're able to fill up and especially now that I have a tow car I can't fit in any other gas station so it's typically the truck stops that I go to to fill this up so listening to music while I Drive I either have air pods or have a bluetooth speaker right here that I'll use eventually I will figure some other system out for music but the thing is this bus is purpose-built to be number one off the grid but number two to get me into places where I can film meet people to film it's basically just a tool to help me live my life on the road so the aesthetics you know for example if the ceiling the music that's just secondary if I just have to put in my air pods and listen to it here that's totally fun my longest stint of driving in this bus I did do a nine-hour day and it absolutely wrecked me I was I was done the reason is it it's physically and mentally exhausting driving one of these bigger rigs fighting the steering wheel being that I did do a roof raised the wind does affect it semis coming by as they're coming down the highway they pushed the air to the side kind of pushes against the bus so you're fighting it it's definitely different driving this than even my my class a tonne of vehicle behind my class say we had nine hours but I would not suggest that typically I try and stay around 200 to 250 miles per per day when I Drive so thanks for watching if you want to keep up with my travels my other channel is the off-grid school II obviously I have this channel on tiny home tours my facebook is Chris travels and basically just traveling around I'm living on the road and how I live simply how I save money and hanging out with that crazy pup but once again thanks for watching we'll catch you guys later [Music]

Channel: Tiny Home Tours

Views: 1,646,604

Keywords: tiny home, tiny house, tiny home on wheels, van life, camper van, shipping container, design, tiny houses, tiny homes, tiny house tour, skoolie, school bus conversion, skoolie conversion, off the grid, dry camping, boondocking, chris travels, chris travels bus, skoolie tour, skoolie build, school bus conversion tour, school bus build, budget skoolie, budget skoolie build

Id: zmc0JnCgYwI

Length: 60min 53sec (3653 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 28 2019