VANLIFE |Tiny House Shuttle Bus Conversion: Take a tour!

hello this is Patrick a New Jersey's outdoor adventures YouTube channel here in a layer State Park I'm camping out here for the night and I just bumped into Rita and Rita has this beautiful I guess it's a shuttle bus well she's gonna tell us all about it she's gonna give us a tour of the inside hello Rita welcome to New Jersey outdoors I'd like to show you my shuttle bus it is a 1999 e450 Super Duty 7.3 diesel engine it's very powerful it is a shuttle bus that if you can see I don't know if you can see it used to have the Cape n alone Cape Henlopen Senior Center residents and the reason that that significant is because that's why we bought the shuttle bus it was our favorite place to go camping in Delaware Cape Henlopen and as soon as we saw that we knew the bus was for us even though we had already been in the market per bus so if you like I'd like to show you inside so this is what we call the living room kitchen area over here I have a suburban stove three burners it's got that's an oven and it's got a broiler I love that this is our vent for our propane heater the propane tanks are on the back I'll show you that in a minute but this is great it doesn't I don't mean they don't need the hall around a toaster because I can use the broiler over here I have my control switches for my lights kill switches and well the switches for lights and I have a USB port outlet here everything in the bus is 12 volt and then I had these neat shelves put in here usually we hold water bottles in here and just to keep the counters cleaned up and everything so so I have just these two are my only upper cabinets and as you can see it holds plenty of room but the knees were Store bullet or just someone film no I had everything in here my friend wagner's Nate Wagner he heat Wagner's woodworking he is a friend of mine and he he he said I love a challenge and I said well boy have I got one for you so what he did is he helped me I designed it and he made it come to life so we have these cabinets and he also did this this kitchen counter and the cabinet's I guess you could say so we have two drawers they're pretty big and they hold a lot of things it's this is our pantry and then we have a nice area under here this this is a backflow so when we're driving the water from the tank does not come back up and it doesn't allow any fumes to come up and this is my Revati sink I love it and the reason I love it is because it's big enough to hold my biggest pan and and we are also able to wash our hair in here and take like sponge basses bats up here this also opens up and this comes out so if we want to take an outdoor shower we have an outdoor shower that's pretty clever Thanks so and then let's see over here is our over here is our bench this is where we sit to eat we were gonna have a table and we actually had a table in here but we found that we didn't need the table so we just sit with the benches and the benches come up and hold our they hold systems they hold our mechanics and junk so it's like you got a burger system on I have one and I have an inverter that controls one outlet because I wanted an inverter to charge my computer if I needed to bring my computer but the pump the accumulator tank and the so here's our freshwater tank fill it up from the outside it's about 40 gallons okay that's a good size yeah yes yeah some type of 12 volt demand pump that yes you're fresher yeah we have a 12 volt pump and then attached to that is the accumulator type because we found that our water was pulsating and and it turns out we needed an accumulator tanks and it's super easy to to install so and as you can see the pumps not real loud and where does this waste water go okay I have a five gallon tank below the bus here and I have another one over there for for what for urine I should say well I'll get to that in a minute but so then what happens is there's I can hook a hose up to it and drain it wherever I need to drain it but this is really just just water with like dr. Bonners and and really the I could I could dump it anywhere and I just take it home and dump it or if there's a sanitation dump then we can just dump it there so when I showed you the beginning these switches operated our lighting system and each light is controlled by touch not only that but you can dim them I don't know if it's showing them and then they also will they get brighter too these are the ordinary lights oh wow they're marine lights 12 volt and so I love this because I can kind of control what I want lights on and but it is very very bright so above the bench here we have the chalkboard and this is a magnetic chalkboard and the reason we do this is because we wanted to make sure we weren't having scraps of paper all over so when we write notes sort of shopping this we just put it on here it helps keep the clutter down in the bus but with it being magnetic we can put our like parking passes and whatever we need to up here and thank you for taking the trim ring down on the fan because I really wanted to show explain to us about this roofing system because most people would use like a padded headliner or part of the bar but this is plywood yeah the reason we did that is because if we wanted to add anything later we wanted to make sure we could kind of screw into it and and have it be for real we we have one inch I think that's one inch of insulation and then it's actually yeah this is just one inch up here and then we have the 1/8 board and then we have these one buys that just for looks nothing really did you painting this is all white and we just paint it all white yep so back here is our bedroom area and well there's four of us me and my three daughters and I wanted to not convert anything I really didn't want to have stuff that pulled down converted that was my my goal to not have anything converted so the only thing that we have that converts is this trundle bed and it's why I call it a raised trundle bed I mean so that pulls out and right once it's stuck on it okay something anyway these are twin size mattresses sort of they are thirty by six feet I did that so we had room we none of us are over six feet so we we kind of snake that way these were they're all custom cut tochka bits and so this one we rounded the edges so that they fit in you know so it didn't block the walkway or it made it seem more open a lot of people put the aisle down the middle and we couldn't we I just couldn't make it work that way so yes that said the same person Nate Wagner he did the he did all of these bunks and when we just stained them and this this is a ladder but it's actually the support for the for the point I'll tell you what they did a really nice job yeah over the top with it and then under these beds is ER so under the beds we have they were there purposely on this size because these are just bins from Ikea so when we when we head out we just take these to our house in our closets and we just load them up a lot of times they'll have hangers on them because we can just pull the hangers out and put them on I'm all over the place I apologize we just can hang them on those hooks so we kind of have our hanging clothes out and about but then they just they just slide under here we also have a tent under there like a canopy at 12 a 10 by 10 10 so that always stayed there in case we need it somewhere now this is this is a sentimental piece the the woodworking guy Nate he did this for me I have a box like this just from my ancestors in my house and I have so he loved it so he he created one same red box too he mimicked it in the bus but it holds everything that held our blankets or nightgowns socks the curtains you name it it's it's quite a huge space and it like you know we can we can sit down and put our pants on or things like that it's really it's really helpful now this under here is just our kind of catch-all so I have my tools back here I'll put extra pantry stuff here for on the long trip and then this is my bag that stores it's a big basket that stores all the it'll sort laundry backpacks extra blankets sometimes or winter coats when we're going out and about and all I do is I just I have a hook over there and here and then I just go stick it right there like that and it'll it holds everything in pretty nicely our chairs and beach umbrellas in the back and this this door actually I'm sorry this door actually opens up so we can access that same thing from the from the backside so these two windows these two doors open up and we have a that's advantage of getting a shuttle bus I guess this would have been this was the handicapped door and yeah that was a that was a feat in itself to get rid of that there was a lift or something there there's the lift yeah it was very very very heavy so an interesting thing is to gut the whole bus and to get rid of the fiberglass and bolts and everything like that the seats cost me eighteen dollars so when I took the lift out I put it in my truck and I took it to a scrap yard and they gave me eighteen dollars for it so I got the bus down to nothing they like it all brookhaven so there was a an escape hatch here and of course it leaks like nobody's business so we bought a marine hatch and it just Oh friends up look at that so balloon festivals fireworks you'll find this up here and it's easy to access so we just climb up on this bed and it it's supposed to it'll hold open but I wish I had that on my van oh this is really nice this is really really nice so this was we weren't sure what we were gonna do with this I wasn't sure but it actually ended up to be a nice catch-all for these big things so these I put in that marine hatch for a sunny day so that it doesn't turn into like an oven in here and then I just for my little shelf and you know if I have to crawl under the bus that type of thing my chair this chair so not talking about Sun what do you do I mean there's if you want to look around folks there's windows all the way around so how do you address privacy well because we we figure we just get dressed in the back here we have these during the day we have this like it looks really terrible now but it's um just peel off okay plastic so they can't see in and the way it works out is that when we're over there you can't see anything through these anyway it is dark they are darkened windows at night we'll pull curtains out and we just hook them on these little these little magnets and I put strapping all along this edge and there's actually magnetic paint paint it under this white sill so my curtains will stick up here and the bottom have magnets in them and then they'll stick to the ledge because this this is actually like an inch or two in from this so if they hung they would actually hang out and I was like you know every inch it like this you need every inch so I made sure I put them back in so over here is our thermostat that runs that heat in the front of the bus oh it's like a propane yep it's the propane heater and like I said that's in the back we have we have the propane also runs the hot water heater are just the water heater and this is a ventless one that's hard to find it but so we have incredible hot water the reason I did that is because on cold nights we use water bottles hot water bottles when it's going to get really really cold and because there's four of us and they're like um I think two liters it would take forever to boil them on the stove so I'm pretty lazy and so I just decided I would buy one of these and when we're filling up our hot water bottles if you put it on the hottest it is extremely hot so we don't have to really boil water it that's it's hot enough to just stick in our beds for the night we hope we stay warm so now this is what we call this is a refrigerator oh and by the way this is the best invention ever put magnets on your hairbrush and then with three girls and then they never lose it so this is a winter cooler it's just I think it's the sixty two two sides and this is 12 volt and/or AC so if we're at someone's house we can just run a cord out the window and plug in that way otherwise it's 12 volt and it really is pretty efficient and holds quite a bit of stuff so and each side can be their own temperature so like this could be 50 degrees if I'm holding just fruit or whatever and then this one can be freezing it goes anywhere from negative 70 I think 250 what kind of do you batteries are solar yeah so I did not want to do solar it just never felt right and like that's the thing if it doesn't feel right like there's a reason so I just don't go for it and I and solar never really felt right to me so what I do is I have two batteries that are dedicated just to starting the bus and running the bus there is another 200 AGM battery that is in the next Bank over from those batteries the alternator charges them but I have an isolator so the 208 GM just runs my house lights the the fan that's under repair right now lights fan inverter pump cooler so don't you later basically if I get this right if you leave on all these lights in the back you're not draining the engine battery correct but it allows power through from alternator charge your internet it'll charge my first set and then it charges the the house battery and oh yeah because there is nothing to me being stranded but you know not being able to start it because of a dead battery I and there's just no reason to when there's things like Isolators out there so this is kind of a sort of subject but it's a necessary subject so we chose there's the toilet we chose to use a separate over a composting toilet and the reason is is because we have four girls and in the morning alone we would fill up the gallon the urine container and I said I didn't want to be carrying a urine bucket around everywhere so we we chose the separate and that this the urine would then go into a tank underneath the bus a five gallon tank and that yeah I can hook a hose up to it and get rid of it however I need to and then your number two goes in the back and we we did choose this because well I have young girls and I didn't know if they could do one and not the other and it we just I just decided to do this way so if they're doing it both at once it goes where it needs to go and do add anything to the bag yeah so right now we're using hemp pet bedding and it keeps down the smell and it's just I can actually show you how underneath it so it's just a you know Home Depot bucket I have a double bagged you can buy biodegradable bags but anyway I'm not using them right now so it's just regular bags I'd double bag it and then so the urine goes in here and there is a that has that same as that same yep so no smell no I heard horror stories about when people are driving and like hip bumps and they have a full tank and it comes up and you do that you could siphon the water out of a pee-pee trap underneath a toilet or sink and now you have direct vent into the tank so yeah those are necessary so that's just so that's our really elaborate system there so what's what's the wholeness okay well we were having a hard time putting that lit lid back on and so I see so it's kind of line out ya hassle because we don't want to find out the hard way that it didn't line up you have a puddle on the floor yeah so I can now stick my hand through here to hold this pump or to hold this pipe to make sure that it indeed there's no clamp it's just gravity feeds it down there's no pressure so well that pose was meant to fit fit that so normally we are getting water we don't know where from all the time usually it's from my home before we set out on trip but sometimes we don't know and so we did choose to use the berkey water system as opposed to having like RV filters and something that could just be a little screwy and what we do with this is but usually we have it right down here because if you remember the water bottles are here so the kids just come in and fill up there and you know they don't have to come mess up that when we travel it just goes in here and then there's a piece of velcro here then I just strap it around here so ever safe and sound very clever I thought so okay okay I do have a backup mirror I mean cameras and this is where all the like the curtains and you know all that big fluffy stuff it hogs up a lot of room I just have it all smushed in there and you might have said it earlier what is the length of this so outside it's 25 feet inside it 16 feet up to where that where the floor ends oh and the flooring is just vinyl stick on flooring from Home Depot waterproof and easy to swap out if you need to yeah yeah yep so here are where our batteries are the the both batteries are in here and the monster 200 AGM Patrick is right in there Wow yeah it's um it's heavy so we don't want to mess with that if you don't have to so right up here I don't know so when I went to go find my backup cameras I went to buy the one pack and they were sold out so I had to buy the 2 pack for like I don't know maybe 8 or 18 dollars more so I bought it and then I noticed I had this I think they must have had a light here at one time so I just decided to have the camera mounted there now the cameras are 175 degrees I believe and they also have like night vision so I did this because if I heard somebody lurking outside it actually shines all the way to the front of the door so it's a fake so the other camera is mounted on the back here and this is really nice because we store our bikes back here I store my grill and whatever else we have and I can if I had a big bump I just naturally look up and make sure it's all still there I do the same I make sure my bike is still on my bike rack and this tray probably wasn't part of the shuttle living so I had somebody built this and helped me out with a lot of the parts on the inside so he it's Road routes up fitters and they're from Colorado they came out and him and his wife and his son he helped me out JT JT Lane I should give him some credit cuz he didn't fit so he actually tore the old bumper off or whatever I don't know and he designed all of this himself and he he just you know attached it you had it's all attached to the frame and it's a life Sarah so when I'm grilling I just I don't have to put it on a table I didn't even see because it tanks are black no those are two 20 pound bottles yeah you got about five gallons each bottle yeah I have what I have this one has just always hooked up to my my grill and very easy to use and then this is actually I've used this as a outdoor table more times than I can and say so you know I got a lot of flack about painting these black but the white ones actually just did not fit and I haven't really had any trouble like they haven't blown up or anything so there's there any systems on this side just besides now it looks like you got a docking light and diesel fuel film well there's those were already part of the bus the only thing I had it on this side what the this was is for the freshwater okay the fill and then underneath up here there's a there's a hook for a the tank okay that's the drain dare to drain out the urine but I call it a gray and black tank so I guess this one's a yellow tank the yellowcake yeah I often dump a lot of water in it to make sure it's not straight it looks like this outlet might be for a block heater for that yeah yep so in wintertime we just put that on but I haven't had it I did buy it in the winter but I haven't so yeah there's been nothing done to the outside that uh we kind of spent all of our funds on the inside and we're gonna save and decide how we're gonna paint the outside we can't decide if we want to be like we don't know if we want to be stealth or if we want us to have it yet this is pretty stealth if I was driving I would say Dan Atlantic City and I seen this parked on the side of the road I would have just thought it was a shot I was thinking about putting like you know the Gardner choir there you go anything up in the cab area how many how many miles are on this coach it has 137 thousand miles and that everybody knows for 7.3 liter diesel power stroke yes yeah it's like yeah third of its life honestly it's the it's it was very easy to drive this make a parish seat - I know right but it was a pretty gross seat and I haven't replaced that yet so it's pretty comfortable a lot of very easy to see the only my biggest my favorite button is closed act I could just do that I'm used to the lever that that yeah and it doesn't and it actually has a key on the outside so when we leave we can leave out there and just lock it and it closes it and opens it now don't ask me what any of these things are because I'm pretty sure they're they're user unrelated to what you're usually but the cigarette lighter works which holds my which charges my phone which is the most important thing so while I'm driving the kids are buckled in there's three seatbelts here we are planning on putting cushions down but I just haven't decided decided how or what style or anything so so what um what inspired you to take a risk like this and and by a bus and convertible what was your ideas here well way back when I knew with the four of us and as a single mom that it would be very expensive to fly anywhere so camping was our was what we were going to do I wanted to travel but the only way I could travel was to camp and so we had a camper we had a 17-foot Rockwood Roo a hybrid and that started to to not do so well so when I went to look for RVs I and not only that I need an RV I also needed a truck and you know doing the math I said oh my goodness I'm gonna be spending anywhere between 50 and 80 thousand dollars and and I always am a very I'm a tiny house enthusiast and so I think I just tried to get the most best of three worlds you know tiny house I needed a truck and a place to camp I you know I camper so this just was just what's gonna work I chose the shuttle bus because of the height and in kind of because it was the one that popped out in front of me first and when it was said Cape Henlopen on the side that's what I was going to seal the deal so I see a lot of schools converted I don't see shuttle buses and let me tell you after I've seen what you've done here on this shuttle bus I'm sure some of our viewers are gonna start taking a detour and stopping maybe look for a shuttle bus oh yeah yeah the thing with shuttle buses is they're very in extinct they're just as inexpensive as buying a school bus mine was actually I think overpriced I spent 4,500 on it and I just put a lot of money make to my friend Mike the Makai mechanic and I just said please make sure everything's good and it wasn't really pretty decent shape and I think I'd probably spend another fifteen thousand not even on the whole interior that's very reasonable yeah because the camper I was looking at was over twenty thousand plus the truck was a truck so now I don't have to buy a truck and what other tips would you give our viewers here before we wrap up if they were gonna attempt to build something like this what are some of the downfalls that you've seen or some of the hurdles that you had to go over and challenges I have to get to this yeah so I was I felt like I'm old so I was in a hurry to get started on the summer so I hired somebody and it seems like a lot of money and and it was a lot of money but I'll tell you what it was worth every penny I had you know rub roots of fitters up from Colorado JT Lane and his wife came in and spent four weeks with me and just rehabbed the whole thing so was Mike who is from navigation know where they had their buses parked in my driveway and just worked on this day and night for four weeks so our viewers are gonna very familiar with Mike because he was on it he was featured on our channel actually one of the first yeah one of the first RV interviews I did and I just met with him about last week we're gonna do a follow-up video oh yeah okay great so you'll have to say do you know reading it because he's like everybody knows Rita but I had them here and it was worth every penny you know I it was my design I put a lot of blood sweat and tears in it alongside of them but I didn't have to make the mistakes that they had already seen and went through and it was like it was really pretty smooth to do but it just saved a ton of headache and they were worth every penny the other thing too is I'd say make sure you know what kind of camping you're going to be doing are you going to campgrounds are you going to be stealth camping are you traveling in it for long and that kind of thing because that really determines your systems like whether you're gonna have hookups or whether you're going to use a dump drain or and that's my stuff I knew I wanted to be able to stop at places and be self-sufficient which is why I chose the 12-volt battery and the systems that I did on the inside and a lot of our viewers after watching navigation know we're video that we did had a lot of questions in regards to CDL how do you ensure how do you license one of these is there anything that we need to know about that well a lot of people won't know what to do but I I called my insurance company and because of my weight because I was over let's say I was over eight ton no I was over eight thousand pounds I think because of my weight I had to get commercial insurance DMV registered me as a van a really heavy van but a van and right now because I have a sink and a toilet I can actually send paperwork in to Trenton to get it converted to an RV and then I can get RV insurance and that would probably cover version because you're probably right now not covering the phone oh man I'm not really entirely sure what I'm covered with but I know I I just I have as much as I can get at least you have a liability yeah oh yeah yeah and I actually have collision and comprehensive I have everything on it and then as far as the CDL you don't need a special license because I'm not transporting I'm not it's not for hire or you know it's not being used as a commercial I'm not pulling people around and making money off of it I'll read it thank you very much for spending time with us here at new jersey outdoor adventures youtube and our viewers they're going to love this video they're gonna love you they're gonna love the conversion and thank you for being our guest here today oh thank you I lose Patrick the New Jersey's outdoor adventures YouTube channel hope you enjoyed this video please like this video comment share subscribe I love it and we'll see you soon

Channel: New Jersey Outdoor Adventures

Views: 1,509,000

Keywords: shuttle, bus, conversion, school, skoolie, vanlife, skoolielife, shuttlelife, campervan, build, make, buy, sell, cost, motor home, ford, e series, van, rv, chevy, blue bird, winnebago, airstream, class b, campers, trailer, home made

Id: 8c41YMLefbE

Length: 32min 53sec (1973 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 28 2019