Remaking our motorhome, if we did it again

It's been a year since we bought an old school bus and finished converting it into a motorhome. And it's been a whole year that we've been living, and travelling, in this bus RV that we call Blu. 

So, if we were to do the conversion again, but with hindsight, what would we change? It's a good question. 

We wouldn't change much. We love our layout, it's a spacious design, and something that other motorhome and caravan owners always comment on: "wow, this is roomy!"  

We seem to have adequate storage space too. Some people think it's not much but if you've come from a smaller motorhome (like we have with Blac) or the backpacking lifestyle (which I was doing before meeting H) then Blu has lots of storage space. 

We love our choice of windows with a couple of exceptions: 

1) the sliding window beside the drivers seat is too high. 

H possibly should have installed it as low as possible in that space. Lower would have made it easier to check for cyclists and easier to buy tickets at toll booths/ferry ticket booths/ entrance gates. 

2) on the passenger side we don't have an openable window up the front where the passenger normally sits. I wish we'd installed a sliding window there. Sometimes to talk to people we may have pulled up along side of, or sometimes to simply open it while we're travelling and smell the fresh mountain air or take in a sea breeze. 

This photo, showing our camp on the Robinson River a while back, shows the drivers front sliding window is rather high. 

Our electrical system is great and we've been able to live off-grid for an entire year! We have 1300 watts of solar feeding into a big 600amp hour lithium battery. So it's great, but, in hindsight, a 400amp hour battery would have been enough. Also, if I did it again I think I'd buy the battery from an Australian company. This Chinese one has been fine but in the end I think it cost almost the same as buying Aussie and if we'd bought Aussie we'd have been dealing with people who could hopefully answer our questions better. 

Being that we have so much power I do believe that we could have installed an induction stove instead of the gas cooker that we have. This would simplify the set up a little more: we wouldn't have to obtain and store gas, wouldn't have needed gas certification, and induction stoves are quite inexpensive now. 

I'd like to have an insect screen on the door but all my suggestions for this get knocked back by H. 

And next time, I don't think we'd install a single draw in the whole motorhome. We actually only have one, for the cutlery (knives, forks, etc), but it's been a nuisance. 

I think that's all we'd change. All in all Blu has been very much a success. 

DIY Motorhome: Electrics

Our house is off-grid! By this I mean that since we started travelling in Blu we haven't had to plug it into a main power supply (although we can). Our solar panels and battery have so far proven to be enough! Despite having electric machines for coffee, laundry, and vacuuming. 

As I have mentioned previously, we put as many solar panels on the roof as we could fit. That happened to be 13 flexible 100 watt monocrystalline panels. We chose flexible panels because they're light and don't involve glass, and they happen to come as monocrystalline panels. 

This 1300 watts of solar panels harvests energy and, via two 50 Amp controllers, delivers it for storage to a big 600 amp hours lithium battery. Then, for 240v household energy, some of the power goes through a 'Pure sine wave charger inverter' (which can also charge power to our battery from a mains power source), other power is consumed as 12v/USB.. 

The battery was custom made for us in China and it seems to be holding up well. 

For me, buying the battery from China was especially scary! It was a large sum of money that we sent to China.... and there were times that I wondered if we'd ever get our battery. The Chinese company were actually very good to deal with and did provide us great service, specifically talking to us about our needs and available space and building a battery to suit. 

It's a heavy battery! It's in its own metal box with BMS (battery management system) and weighs about 110kg. 

 

Installing the battery with a Dingo mini digger with forks. 

Once it was all set-up it wasn't without problems. The first problem we discovered was that one of the charge controllers was failing. They are from Victron Energy and you can buy a cable to connect the controllers to your computer (or an alternative sends info to a smart phone) and from there you can conveniently look at what's going on. Having discovered that one wasn't working we were able to return it for warranty. 

But, we still had another problem. Our 'starter' (engine) battery swelled. The first we knew of it was a terrible sulphuric type smell, and at first we simply thought that the seaside village we were visiting stunk! But it turned out it was our battery. We thought the problem was caused by the faulty controller, which we'd sent away for warranty (and so were then operating on only 6 or 7 panels), so when we replaced the lead acid battery we didn't expect anymore problems. 

But, just days before we received our replacement controller, as we drove down the road we heard an incredible BANG! We were still driving (diesel) so we pulled over to discover our new Lead Acid battery had completely exploded. We were very lucky, we were out of town when it happened and no passing property, people or ourselves were injured. Also lucky that on our bus this battery lives in a compartment under the bus, below where the driver sits (so not in the engine compartment where it would have done more damage). 

 

Here's what our exploded battery looked like!

We isolated the problem (to avoid a potential fire hazard), and with the help of a passing motorist (to get us started again) we were able to drive to a place where we could buy and install another battery, and get our electric system checked over by an auto-electrician. We were also lucky that the parts shop we stopped at was privately owned and had a large yard behind the shop where H was able to do the battery replacement, we were permitted to stay the night, and the auto-electrician could visit to check things over. (We didn't even want to start the engine until we'd had a qualified opinion). 

So, what was the problem? Well, H, having installed lead acid batteries in motorhomes before, installed it as he would have with those: with the Lead acid system and the lithium system interconnected. But, apparently this is a no-no. So now they are insolated. To charge the lithium battery our option is solar or mains power, and the alternator charges the Lead acid battery. 

Throughout all the setup and troubles we were greatly assisted by a friend, Roy, in Germany. His advice, on email, was exceptional (he's somewhat an expert in the matter www.infinitefingers.com. ).   

Since replacing that battery, disconnecting the systems, and installing the replacement controller we've been operating without problems. As I write this it is almost 5pm on a particularly hot Aussie summer day. I've made 4 cups of coffee in a Philips Senseo machine, done 3 loads of washing, vacuumed the floor, had the fans running all day, the fridge has been working hard, and we've been parked in the shade since 11am. Our lithium battery screen (handy) says it's at 88.8% SOC (State of Charge). We reckon that's pretty good. 

 

 

This is the screen for the battery. We had to put a strip of Velcro on the top to attach a cover at night when it attracts insects. 

Here's some specifics:

The 600 amp hours lithium battery is from 'PL Energy Group'. 

Our 50 amp charge controllers are from Victron Energy. 'BlueSolar charge controller MPPT100/50'

Our 'Pure Sine Wave Charger Inverter' is from "Cosuper". 

Special thanks to Roy (www.infinitefingers.com.)(as mentioned above)  and to the old Dutch guy 'Theo' with the parts shop in Bendigo. No point mentioning names, he's sold the shop and retiring. 

DIY motorhome: air-conditioning

Our bus didn't come with air conditioning. It had roof hatches, which we left as they were, and small sliding windows above the big fixed windows, all of which we removed. 

And being that this RV would be for travels in Australia we really needed to get some air-conditioning in. 

H had dedicated, early in the project, the whole roof area to solar panels so we couldn't install a system on the roof, nor did we want to. Aside from that being a space compromise, it would be exposed, add wind resistance, would possibly shade the solar panels and possibly get knocked under a tree. What we wanted was a system to work from within the engine compartment. And at first this proved very difficult. 

The local air-conditioning business simply told us it was too difficult, they couldn't do it, it'd be too expensive, and honestly they didn't seem to want to think about it. We walked away from there still determined to do it but wondering where we'd get help from. 

We looked at truck sleeper cabs systems and had some good advice there that the 'ice-pack' system wasn't right for us but they nudged us in the right direction. 

Slowly we were starting to piece together a solution. Then I went out for coffee with an old friend. She casually said 'hey, you know my husband is doing air-conditioning now?'  He's primarily a farmer so I hadn't known. It was soon arranged that he'd come for a look at our project. We were in luck because he's a man that happily takes on odd projects. He (N) doesn't  promote his work because he still farms and gets enough work to keep going with. 

The biggest challenge was to find space on the engine to install the compressor, but H & N did. And then we had to get pulleys made to take the drive power from the engine to the compressor of the air conditioner. After that it was a simple installation of the evaporator, hoses and wiring. 

Our installed air-conditioner is an after-market under dash mount style (although we installed it at the inner ceiling). The biggest we could have is for a vehicle no larger than a van so it's very useful that we have a dividing door in the bus to separate the bedroom off. Thereby, we only aircondition the front part of our home. 

Our air-conditioner only works when we are driving (have the engine running). Additional to this we have a 12 volt ceiling mounted RV/yacht fan in the bedroom, and, because we've got so much power from the solar and those 12v fans are so expensive we also have a cheap 240v box fan that we use in the main living area. We mostly put it onto of the fridge, held but movable with good magnets. 

 

DIY motorhome: interior space #2

Last week I wrote a rather short piece about designing the interior cabinets of Blu. But I realise now I should have written as to how we decided what would go where. 

We started knowing where and how we'd put the bed: with the Mercedes Denning bus build being 2.1metres (almost 7') across it was an easy and immediate choice to put the bed going across the bus and on top of the boot space. H extended the boot (trunk) space to be the depth of the bed width (that's about 1.8m or almost 6').

It's handy to have a big external storage space on a motorhome and you see them increasingly on new builds. Think storage for outdoor furniture, bicycles, tools and H dreams of putting a paramotor in there. 

Back inside, the wheel arches were an unmovable problem that we had to work around. The framework on the bus meant that the toilet, needing an external hatch for the cassette access, needed to go just behind a wheel arch. So the toilet is right beside the bed, with privacy from a partition wall between the bed and the loo, and a sliding door between the private area and the living area.  

Above the toilet we installed our mini front loading laundry machine. It's great! We got it on eBay, from Korea, because we couldn't buy one here. 

Beside the toilet, sharing the same dual wheel arches but on the forward side is the shower. They are separate, not a shower over loo like in many RV's. 

I had wanted an outside kitchen. In Blac we had taken our portable stove outside a lot and Australian RV's often have an external kitchen since our 'great outdoors' is so nice (I mean Australia has plenty of outdoor spaces and very good climate). But we couldn't build an external slide out kitchen for Blu as it wouldn't work with the framework (or at least we couldn't see a good way to do it). So I decided on what seemed like the next best thing, and I think (now that we're using it) it's a better thing: we built the kitchen on the passenger side beside the door with a big hopper window. So, I can cook inside, without having to carry any tools or food out, with the big window open and H can be sitting just outside (or him in cooking, me out), and there's still communication and views and the food/drinks can be passed out the window. It works wonderfully. 

The passenger side space between the kitchen bench and the bed would obviously become cupboard space: pantry, wardrobe and bedside table (night stand). Importantly (and you can see this in the sketch I put in last weeks blog) we set the wardrobe wall from the bedside table to the front of the wardrobe at an angle. This angle, although slight, hasn't much affected our internal wardrobe space but it's given the private area a much more roomy and less box-like feel. 

In front of the shower (drivers side) we built our own fridge-freezer. It's a top loading eutectic fridge, super efficient. More about that another time, but size wise it's a big box, and visually it helps with our spacious look. 

Back to the front of the bus, drivers side, and we needed to put in a dining table and a seat behind it. We rescued the framework of one of the bus's former school bus bench seats for this, but the seat and upholstery wasn't available to us anymore so we had to remake that.  It makes a small seat for 2 bums, which might be handy if we have a visitor or two, and it means H & I can sit across from each other at the table for dining. 

Honestly, I think the dining area is the least finished part of the bus, and it's not just because I need to get some more decorative upholstery on the bench. It's unfortunate that the drivers seat, turned around, is high and the bench seat is low and so the table is too high for the bench but too low for the drivers seat! Maybe one day we'll get a better solution, but for now it works. 

When people come into Blu they compliment us on how spacious it feels. It's great! Although we cooked and ate outside as much as we could in Blac we don't do that anymore. Blu has great views and air from the big windows and we're quite comfortable inside.... as well as having insect screens to help keep Australias famous pests outside. 

DIY motorhome: interior space

Throughout most of the motorhome build, so far, it was H doing a lot of it while I sourced supplies or held or helped lift things. But when it came to the interior design of the cupboards I finally got to 'have a go'. 

First I drew up my ideas and then once we'd agreed on them we taped out the design on the floor to see how it felt for space, and tweaked the design a bit more. Then we had my brother draw up the passenger (left)  side design on a CAD programme and sent them and some more PVC foam panels to a joining firm to cut them. 

 

 

While they were being drawn and cut we were able to work on a few other jobs: H built the shower and we managed a trip to Melbourne. 

 

DIY motorhome: the wall tops & insulation

Last week I blogged about our well built step and door. We've travelled with it for over a month now and it really is working well. 

Early in the project we'd stripped almost all the glass out of the school bus. The large school bus windows hadn't been the type you could open (just small ones at the top for opening) and H had way more vision than I did and wanted walls with double paned windows in appropriate places. (I would have just blocked them out, like most DIY conversions seem to). Additionally, we'd bought the bus with a crack in the front windscreen and we'd accidentally cracked a front corner quarter window while removing the glass beside it. 

To make the new walls we used composite panels and we were lucky enough to get (free) a couple of large safety warning signs in that same material that we could recycle into our project. That was a significant saving and remember our old motorhome Blac? Blac was built with recycled Belgian motorway signs (see our most popular post list). 

Window holes were cut in the panels before we put the panels in place. First the outer panel, then as much recycled foam insulation as we could fit, then the inside panel, and then we filled the gaps inside with spray expanding foam. Blu is truly well insulated and you can actually be inside with just the roof hatches open on a hot day and it's okay. 

Finally the windows could be installed. These are European style RV windows: 2 of the biggest we could get in the living area, 2 smaller ones in the private bed area (all hatch style), and a sliding one beside the driver. The hatch windows are readily available in Australia (Dometic), but we had to search more for the sliding window and found it available from Southern Spirit Caravans in Geebung (Brisbane). 

All of these windows have built in blinds and screens which is a tidy system until the insects get squished into it. The blinds are perhaps built for European conditions, i.e. Less insects.  We've had days in this trip already where during the day the flies were relentless, then, as the sun sets the flies leave and the mosquitoes attack agressively, and then later the moths try for any light you have shining, even the little lights on things like the radio, when you attempt to sit in the dark with just the radio for entertainment.  

I like the windows more than I dislike them but I do find that their white screens isn't as good as Australia's typical grey/black screens, the insects do get squished into the blind and the screen in the rolling action, and that the screen on the sliding system is a silly system, especially at night, as the insects come into the section between the fixed window part and the screen and get stuck there. Also, clipping the screen to the blind is tricky, but I'm perfecting that talent each day. 

 

 

DIY motorhome: from the top down!

After we'd removed the seats, the old floor, and the windows (they couldn't be opened plus we wanted something that was more like an apartment on wheels rather than a bus that was lived in), H said that we needed to start working from the top down.

First we put scaffolding right around the bus, on all four sides. This was greatly assisted by having already removed the bus windows. Then we used the part above the front windscreen as a mould and built a fibreglass 'spoiler' for the top front of the bus. This was built to protect the solar panels and the massive 4.5metre awning that we were to install on the top of the bus.

H has done bit of fibreglassing over the years and it's surprising simple. If you want to see how it's done I do recommend looking at a few YouTube videos.

Next came the installation of the solar panels. We installed as many of them as we could fit, which meant 13 of them. We built brackets under them, which means that they also shade the roof. We used flexible solar panels, as they are a lot lighter and every bit counts!

Behind the spoiler and under the left side solar panels, we've integrated the awning into the design: so it doesn't stick out.

And that pretty much sum's up what we did on top of Blu.

With scaffolding all around the bus it was much easier to do the roof work, and safer too!

The newly installed solar panels: don't mind the crinkly plastic on them, it's just the protective layer that we could later remove.

From the ground left side you can see the framing for some of the solar panels and the awning.

Stripping out the Mercedes bus

We started our vehicle conversion by doing exactly what everyone would expect us to do: we removed all the seats from the school bus. Later we'd have to re-install one school bus bench, a drivers seat and a passenger seat.

The school bus design gave the bus 'stepped' flooring. Some people, when they convert one of these buses to an RV just work around that. But we pulled the floor out, the only place we'd need a step up was for the wheel arches. Even the wheel arches were taking up more space than they needed to, which we couldn't change on the outer wheel (that would make ugly viewing from the outside of the bus where the arches go over the wheels), but we could alter somewhat for the inner arch (the bus has dual wheels at the back). We actually did look into the prospect of changing the back dual wheels to singles but found it would be too difficult, extremely expensive, and might not get approved after all that. The left rear wheel arches are now in the wardrobe, and the right are partly in the shower and partly in the toilet area. None are in the way.

Also, the original design had a step down at the door. The door was a bi-fold style door, terrible for sealing and taking up valuable space. So the door was removed and the floor could be made level there too. The replacement door design, and needed steps took a lot of figuring out.  I plan to cover that in a whole other post.

H also wanted to make our floor with a double layer of 16mm PVC foam (we used PVC foam for most of the work), so by pulling everything up he could do this.

In the end we have a (mostly) level floor and it looks and feels good.

The original Mercedes Denning School bus interior. We first removed the seats and then the windows.

H showing that the bus is wide enough to sleep across. This is the original floor plan of our (ex-school) )bus.

The original floor and windows replaced for our motorhome conversion. This was when we thought we could change the dual wheels to singles. Later we modified it again to have additional arches to accomodate the dual wheels.

A really comfy RV for travel and living

We've built this motorhome for comfort and living. The roads in Australia are generally quite spacious and free camps are readily available so having a bigger RV set up to be self sufficient seems like a good way to go.

It can be said that in Australia having a lifestyle that involves an RV (Caravan, Camper trailer, motorhome) is very common. Mostly recreational vehicle owners do seem to have caravans (usually behind a comfortable newish 4 wheel drive), and although they might do a bit in their earlier years, long term travel in an RV is mostly done by retirees, who we affectionately call "grey nomads" (amongst many other names). It's said* that there are over half a million registered RV's in Australia, not insignificant in a country with a population of about 24 million.

Australia is the 6th largest country in the world (behind Russia, Canada, USA, China, Brazil) and so there is plenty of reasons to take your time seeing the great southern land.

To make this motorhome as comfortable as possible, H first selected a bus that had 2 metres of headroom and a fibreglass outer to work with. He then stripped it down and replaced the non opening bus windows with walls and RV windows. We've put as many solar panels as we could fit onto the roof: that's 13 of 100 amp flexible panels. We've fully insulated it (really insulated it, I'm still surprised how cool it is inside while parked in the sun), put rotating chairs in and a bench seat, built and installed an eutectic fridge/freezer, installed a big 600amp lithium battery to suit those solar panels, and installed a washing machine. Even our mattress is a comfy 203cm tall by 145cm wide!

This mobile home is built to live in. It's our home and so we aren't paying expenses on another home base at the same time. Considered this way, it's worth putting the extra touches into making it a nice place to live in.


*http://www.unsealed4x4.com.au/just-big-rv-industry-australia/ 

Our motorhome interior: Kitchen, dining, and the large chest in the left corner is the fridge. Note, we also have a door to the bedroom-bathroom.

Shower, toilet and laundry in our RV/ Motorhome.

The front of the Motorhome bus: rotating chairs.

Our old Mercedes school bus is now converted to a motorhome!

I did say that we expected to be finished in July. But we weren't.

In early October we finished building the motorhome which we have decided to call 'Blu'. The name fits as the last RV (which travelled North and South America and quite a bit of Europe) I called 'Blac', and this one, as well as being half blue, is our Australian motorhome: Australian things are often described as 'true blue'.

The bus we chose for this conversion was previously a school bus. H very much chose the vehicle and to convert it (I've always said I'm happy if the wheels are going around, it doesn't much matter to me what wheels they are). The bus is a Mercedes Vario with the original bus build done by Denning in Brisbane. H chose it because the shell is fibreglass, it's Mercedes, it's older and diesel, and most of all, it has 2 metres of head height inside.

See my photo's for some before and after pictures. I know: I need to put up a photo of the finished interior, but it seems I don't yet have one. I'll put it up next post.

This is the Mercedes Vario Denning bus that we purchased to convert to a motorhome / RV.

Our home! It looks quite different to what we started with.

Here's the school bus interior before converting it to an RV

We are already on the road. First we didn't go far away, we invited some friends to a nearby camping spot so that they could see our new home and we could have a 'test run'. The test run produced our first problem and we had to replace a belt on the air-conditioner, but aside from that all was good, and so now we're travelling again (and the air-con is working).

I'll post again soon with some more pictures. Please post any questions you might have.

Building our new Motorhome

Since we've been back in Australia I haven't been blogging. I have chosen to only blog about overlanding, and not about anything that isn't relevant to (our) world travel in a motorhome.

At the moment, we are working on building our new motorhome. For this we bought an old Mercedes "denning" school bus and we are converting it. H hopes to have the task completed in July of this year.

As I don't have much to comment on I am simply posting some photos on our Facebook page "The Belgian and The Aussie" to show those interested our progress.
https://www.facebook.com/thebelgianandtheaussie/

Here's the bus that we are converting to a motorhome.

When the conversion is ready I intend to post a full blog about our building the motorhome.

Inside of Blac, part 2

The remainder of the photos of the inside of our motorhome, Blac.

5. Looking towards the front of the vehicle.  The fridge is on the left,  we covered it with a poster print collage of our wedding day and a drawing from my niece at the bottom. Clothes cupboard is beyond the fridge.

6. The toilet (I won't use American terminology as you clearly can't take a bath in there). It's a flushing Thetford toilet.  Waste goes into a sealed cassette,  it can be pulled out from a little door on the outside wall, and Hendrik empties it daily. On the right is our folding outdoor table.

7. The shower.  The toilet and shower are on opposite sides of the back door.

Blac can carry 150 litres of water.  We usually fill up the water at gas stations, but we can fill from rivers or lakes if need be.  The water is for everything: kitchen, drinking (run through the filter), toilet flush, and shower. 150 litres typically lasts us (2people) 3 days.  We rarely use public toilets.

Inside of Blac, part 1 (as much requested!)

Here are some much requested photos showing what the inside of Blac is like.  I'm doing this as 2 blog posts simply as it's easier for me to upload.

It's a tight space,  but enough,  but being tight is difficult to get good pictures.

1. Looking to the front,  that's the bed above the cab. Being able to enter the cab from the camper is a safety feature... if we need to move at night we can without even leaving the vehicle. 

On the right behind the passenger seat are the 2 folding chairs we take outside to sit in. 

2. Taken from the bed,  that's me sitting at the dining table.  We prefer to eat outside though. There is a bench seat on both sides. It's a squeeze,  but you can fit 2 bums on each bench.  But, as it's so tight, we never invite people inside for a cup of tea. 

3. Hendrik filling up a water bottle (from our tap that has the water filter installed) at the kitchen sink. 

There are cupboards above and below the Kitchen work bench. 

4. The kitchen from the back. H is a coffee addict, so there is an expresso machine. And the Black Box is the old Coleman 2 burner stove. We mostly take it outside to use. And, for fun, we have a wooden Toucan. 

How the Belgian built our camper, Blac

Since H doesn't write these blog posts,  and I wasn't around when he built Blac, I'm going to mostly let the following photos do the telling of this story.

There are few points to mention though:
H bought the old 1989 Mercedes G wagen from Germany,  the chassis was strong but the engine needed replacing.  He bought another engine,  an '82 model, from France.

He cut the top and back off the cabin and built the camper directly onto the chassis.

The large panels of the unit are recycled highway signs.  He glued the panels together with Sicaflex and fibreglass.
Inside he built the cupboards from lightweight poplar wood, with sliding doors so that they wouldn't come open while driving.
In a space of 2 metres by 5 metres we have a double bed, a dining area (with storage under the bench seats), a kitchen (with 2 burner stove*, sink, bar fridge,  and multiple cupboards), and a flushing toilet and shower (separate).
*H built the unit to completely run on diesel: for cooking and heating. But, one day the big fellow stood on the diesel cooker (to look out the top window at the roof) and broke the diesel cooker.  It was an expensive unit, but I was pleased it broke as the diesel cooker was horribly slow to use, and now we cook using premium unleaded fuel in an old Coleman stove.

Also,  I think it's worth mentioning,  we have a water filtration system installed.  This makes life easy for us,  we can fill up the tanks from any tap, anywhere, or even a stream, and this lightweight small system removes bacteria and heavy metals so that we can drink the water. The filters cartridge needs to be replaced annually, and we get new ones in Belgian or Australia when we visit. The company H got the system from, and the replacement cartridges from is: itdoesthejob.com

These photos aren't great, H only took them with a phone.