Nadie_AZ: So .. where do they park the damn thing when they have to sleep?

Also, if I remember correctly, these things take a lot of gas to run.

Walmart parking lot?

Is Fark even trying anymore?

Not news worthy. It's not like some hasn't done this while looking ghetto in the past.

Enough of these low hanging fruit like articles! I hereby propose a ban on all Daily Fail articles for the next seven days!

I'm pretty sure that I could build something much like that, without the help of CAD, that would be a bit more livable, potentially run better, but maybe cost a tad bit more to operate. It'd have actual beds, a real toilet (one that flushes into a nasty water tank), and a useful kitchen. If you're really going to try this, maybe plan better?

Note - if they had a gym membership, they could work out every day and shower there. One of their problems - solved. Hell, they could even drop the deuce there. Even more problems solved.

gordian: Rather have something like so:
[farm9.staticflickr.com image 320x162]

EarthRoamer

quickdraw: Nadie_AZ: So .. where do they park the damn thing when they have to sleep?

Also, if I remember correctly, these things take a lot of gas to run.

They do and they have an alarming tendency to break down. I had a friend who lived in a school bus and he spent more money getting the damn thing fixed then he would have on rent.

They're easy to work on if you know what you're doing. One of my desires has always been to get an old 4x4 school bus (International Chasis likely) and make an awesome go anywhere RV out of it. Go West and visit all the national parks while fearing no dirt road. Something to do when I'm old and retired. Of course one of my first goals would be figuring out how to not make it look redneck fab by welding shiat onto it.

If some day you see some old geezer in a maize and blue converted into an RV tooling around, you'll know Ha-ha-guy's gone insane and done i.

p4p3rm4t3: [img171.imageshack.us image 599x449]

If one of these get retired, I could live in it.

UsikFark: ronaprhys: I'm pretty sure that I could build something much like that, without the help of CAD, that would be a bit more livable, potentially run better, but maybe cost a tad bit more to operate. It'd have actual beds, a real toilet (one that flushes into a nasty water tank), and a useful kitchen. If you're really going to try this, maybe plan better?

Note - if they had a gym membership, they could work out every day and shower there. One of their problems - solved. Hell, they could even drop the deuce there. Even more problems solved.

In the shower?!?

What you've never healed one down the drain before?

p4p3rm4t3: UsikFark: ronaprhys: I'm pretty sure that I could build something much like that, without the help of CAD, that would be a bit more livable, potentially run better, but maybe cost a tad bit more to operate. It'd have actual beds, a real toilet (one that flushes into a nasty water tank), and a useful kitchen. If you're really going to try this, maybe plan better?

Note - if they had a gym membership, they could work out every day and shower there. One of their problems - solved. Hell, they could even drop the deuce there. Even more problems solved.

In the shower?!?

What you've never healed one down the drain before?

That's heeled*.


/Also Harry Seldon, that's a sweet camper.

Also I'd have to say, if you're going to live in it full time, I feel like a fifth wheel might be the way to go. As you can drop the vehicle and go do things with just the pickup at a higher MPG. My retired parents spend October through April bumming around the south and south west with a pickup and fifth wheel. They're down by Lake Meade right now, I just got Hoover Dam pictures emailed in. They also left the RV part of the rig at the camp ground and drove into Vegas for two days. Much easier to park a 4x4 super duty pickup at the Aria Hotel for a night than an entire RV or bus.

and a writer who doesn't know difference between 'dual' and 'duel' (twice, even)

/built Ford tough

Smeggy Smurf: AutoCAD is meh. It's better than MicroStation but nowhere near as good as Revit. Revit gives me happy boners

mr. teeny likes AutoCAD and SolidWorks. He only has a little experience with Revit, though.

ha-ha-guy: Also I'd have to say, if you're going to live in it full time, I feel like a fifth wheel might be the way to go. As you can drop the vehicle and go do things with just the pickup at a higher MPG. My retired parents spend October through April bumming around the south and south west with a pickup and fifth wheel. They're down by Lake Meade right now, I just got Hoover Dam pictures emailed in. They also left the RV part of the rig at the camp ground and drove into Vegas for two days. Much easier to park a 4x4 super duty pickup at the Aria Hotel for a night than an entire RV or bus.

Or tow the car - just make sure you attach it properly every time. I know someone that happened to. Actually, I think something broke, but either way it ended up being a driverless car going down the road all by itself.

Or if you can afford it:

For $12000, you could pick up a decent used RV that's much better designed.

What the view from a school bus with duel purpose may look like...

School busses turn out to be a very poor choice for RV conversions if you plan to travel at all. They are not designed for freeway use, they are designed for low speed suburb travel. They are terrible on gas mileage and are maintenance pigs, and when they do break their large engines are costly to fix.

For all their work towards making themselves energy efficient, it all goes out the window the moment they start that thing up. Once a year I see the hippie busses full of dreadlocks come through town on the way to Burning Guy and I have to chuckle. They are slowly becoming a caricature of themselves. But to each his own.

A better bet, as another commenter said, is a 5th wheel or travel trailer pulled by a modern turbodiesel. And that setup can cost a lot less than you'd imagine - I got into my setup for about $23K which includes a great F250 TD and the trailer, both used but in great shape.

It's a BUS! You're living out of a BUS!

Wow! Those 2 are damn geniuses. How I envy them...

Their hand-made furniture is built to fit the specs of the bus, and much of it is duel purpose.


How exactly do you duel with furniture?

I have lived in a 5th wheel for about 6 months now...I am parked on the banks of the Colorado river.

My dog thinks it's the best thing since beef coated doggy cookies.

Their bus is a piece of shiat...autocad? really?

Looks like they cut up free furniture from Sal's.

Autodesk called - they said please stop namechecking our fine product for your p.o.s. bus.

My takeaways:

1. Giga-hipster alert
2. I can't blame them for living to want rent-free in San Fran.
3. Reiterate thread's points about school buses being low speed urban cruisers with costly maintenance
4. UsikFark: They presumably have the money and I wish them luck. I will admit I wish I had joined the 4-foot high club back in my day...

They're young, intelligent, giga-hipsters who decided it makes sense to live in a bus and shower every couple of days. I'd venture that no, they don't have money; quite the opposite. I don't think I'd be crazy to assume that between them they've got an easy 6 figures of education debt staring them in the face. They know drafting though- hopefully they're engineers and not interior designers.
5. Duel/dualx2
6. I get that they bought the sbus for the steel frame and not fiberboard/styrofoam that an RV would be in their price range, but I'd actually be impressed if this were an article about how they started out by converting the bus to run electric on the solar panels, then realized they had juice to spare, so why not live in it? This, as it is, really smells more like a "because I can, fark you mom!" plan. All of their supposed well thought out gains are being negated by some other stupid bullshiat they're doing/have done.
7. Some chicks do well with short hair. This one does not.

That's all I can think of for now.

"Wide view: The hand-made furniture is built to fit the specs of the bus, and much of it is duel purpose."

This means they play chicken with other school buses. I can think of no other reason the writer would use the word duel. Or maybe the couple are really into fencing.

Why do people keep putting so much effort into re-inventing things that already exist? This couple has built a motorhome...except it doesn't work as well. Same with the "tiny house" people and their travel trailers. Our recent, ongoing economic plunge has flooded the market with gently used RVs at a fraction of their original price. Units that originally sold for $100k can be found (in good shape) for $25k. And they've got all those luxuries like "plumbing" and "showers" built in. And slide-outs so you can stretch out your arms without hitting the sides. And ceilings high enough to stand up straight. Generators to provide more power when you need it. Air conditioning. Heat. Stove. Oven. Microwave. Drivetrain made within the last decade. Little things.

ha-ha-guy: Also I'd have to say, if you're going to live in it full time, I feel like a fifth wheel might be the way to go. As you can drop the vehicle and go do things with just the pickup at a higher MPG. My retired parents spend October through April bumming around the south and south west with a pickup and fifth wheel. They're down by Lake Meade right now, I just got Hoover Dam pictures emailed in. They also left the RV part of the rig at the camp ground and drove into Vegas for two days. Much easier to park a 4x4 super duty pickup at the Aria Hotel for a night than an entire RV or bus.

Actually, a truck powerful enough to pull a 35+ foot 5th wheel is going to get pretty crappy mileage even without the load. Like 12ish. And they're still pretty beastly to handle in a parking structure. Even without the trailer, the truck's still 20' long, 8' wide, and weighs thousands of pounds. I looked into it a couple years back and concluded that a big class A pulling a little car is a better combo for me. But that's what works for me and I couldn't find anything under 35' that I really liked. A smaller 5th wheel could be pulled by a 250/2500 series truck with a smaller engine and better mileage.

KillTheStupid: How exactly do you duel with furniture?

what are you, an only child?

jtown: Why do people keep putting so much effort into re-inventing things that already exist? This couple has built a motorhome...except it doesn't work as well. Same with the "tiny house" people and their travel trailers. Our recent, ongoing economic plunge has flooded the market with gently used RVs at a fraction of their original price. Units that originally sold for $100k can be found (in good shape) for $25k. And they've got all those luxuries like "plumbing" and "showers" built in. And slide-outs so you can stretch out your arms without hitting the sides. And ceilings high enough to stand up straight. Generators to provide more power when you need it. Air conditioning. Heat. Stove. Oven. Microwave. Drivetrain made within the last decade. Little things.

ha-ha-guy: Also I'd have to say, if you're going to live in it full time, I feel like a fifth wheel might be the way to go. As you can drop the vehicle and go do things with just the pickup at a higher MPG. My retired parents spend October through April bumming around the south and south west with a pickup and fifth wheel. They're down by Lake Meade right now, I just got Hoover Dam pictures emailed in. They also left the RV part of the rig at the camp ground and drove into Vegas for two days. Much easier to park a 4x4 super duty pickup at the Aria Hotel for a night than an entire RV or bus.

Actually, a truck powerful enough to pull a 35+ foot 5th wheel is going to get pretty crappy mileage even without the load. Like 12ish. And they're still pretty beastly to handle in a parking structure. Even without the trailer, the truck's still 20' long, 8' wide, and weighs thousands of pounds. I looked into it a couple years back and concluded that a big class A pulling a little car is a better combo for me. But that's what works for me and I couldn't find anything under 35' that I really liked. A smaller 5th wheel could be pulled by a 250/2500 series truck with a smaller engine and better mileage.

An F250 or 350 can pull a 35' easy. Get a stroker and unloaded you can see 20 MPG pretty easily if you dont drive like an idiot.

As for parking, just expect to back into the spot furthest from the door.

harlock: School busses turn out to be a very poor choice for RV conversions if you plan to travel at all. They are not designed for freeway use, they are designed for low speed suburb travel. They are terrible on gas mileage and are maintenance pigs, and when they do break their large engines are costly to fix.

One of my old teachers said he was on a consulting gigs for a city in southern California, The school buses they bought had cracks in the frame because the city had speed bumps and the buses they bought weren't spec'd for that. So they had to reinforce the frames. Which lead to his comment that buses are designed for specific service. If you try to operate them outside that, they break down. A school bus designed to carry kids a few miles on city streets, may over heat and die if you try to take it over the mountains on a hot day.

One Hippie read about starts with old county owned surplus water trucks. Old, low mileage, and designed to carry a lot more weight than you're ever going to put on it.

ha-ha-guy:

If some day you see some old geezer in a maize and blue converted into an RV tooling around, you'll know Ha-ha-guy's gone insane and done i.

Gone and done i.