tiny home Archives - Forest2Sea 2 Hippies in the Forest

Skoolie Build Diary – Fix Skoolie Window Leaks (Eaves)

Scott McGee — Thu, 11 Jun 2020 00:53:29 +0000

Everyone's Skoolie Windows Leak!

If you’re like us, your skoolie windows leak! We always planned to end up on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, so we knew that lots of rain was in Skoolie Woolie’s future. From the reading we’ve done on skoolie.net, YouTube videos, and blogs, it’s a very common problem. Apparently, even bus windows on new school buses leak! We’ll take you through our adventure with our skoolie windows and how we ‘fixed’ them in the end. We hope that by sharing some of our mistakes, you can take a shortcut with your bus and fix your skoolie window leaks.

Our leaky skoolie window adventure all started with seeing a YouTube video on flipping the windows. We liked the idea of opening them from the bottom and gravity helping to fully close them. CrtrGrl and I briefly watched Jake von Slatt’s video showing how to do it before we decided to remove all of our bus windows. We thought it was a good idea to remove, clean, and re-seal, even if we didn’t end up flipping them. Our plan was also to replace some of the windows with metal, in places they would be covered anyways.

Removing, Flipping and Cleaning

Removing the skoolie windows was fairly easy, once we removed all of the side paneling below them. After that, we only needed to remove 6 screws in order to pull the windows out of the bus walls. We took 2 of the 23 windows to experiment with. Sitting in the garage, we took apart the frames and pulled out the glass.

Watching Jake’s video and trying to see how to put the frames back together upside and backwards, we came to the stark realization that our skoolie windows can’t be flipped in the same way. Our window frames will not fit into the bus walls in a different orientation (upside down, flipped around). We quickly gave up on flipping them and resigned ourselves to just cleaning and re-installing them. We scraped off some of the old adhesive seals along the bottom edge and hosed them off.

Re-installation of the skoolie windows was a bigger challenge than we expected. For re-sealing, we purchased butyl tape for the bottom seal and silicone caulking for the rest. We tried the butyl tape on one window, but struggled to get it to sit properly. We then switched to adhesive foam weather strips for the bottom seal, since it’s thicker and squishier. It’s more forgiving when the bottom lip of the bus wall frame isn’t at exactly the right height.

[See image gallery at hippiesinforest.forest2sea.com]

Mistakes and Water Inside Our Skoolie

[See image gallery at hippiesinforest.forest2sea.com]

We came to understand two things after we had almost all of the windows back in. First, the foam weather stripping wasn’t a good idea, since it carries water through it, rather than blocking it. Second, we should have kept track of which windows went where. Not all of the frames are the same and they didn’t all fit in the open spot we tried to put them in. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize any of this until we had almost all of the windows back in. The last few windows had to be hammered in and not all of the screws fit. To make up for the foam weather stripping, we applied silicone caulking around the outside edges of the windows.

Next up was our first test for water leaks. CrtrGrl was inside the skoolie with a pencil, while I was outside spraying the bus with a hose. She couldn’t keep up with all of the water that was coming in! There was so much coming in from the windows, that she also couldn’t tell where exactly they were leaking. After the bus dried off, I opened up another tube of silicone caulking and went to town on the outside bottom edge of the windows. I thought that if I put enough on, it couldn’t possibly get through. Another leak test, still more water coming in. More silicone in the bottom corners, less water coming in now, but they still leaked!

Desperation is the Father of Invention

That’s when I’d had enough and realized we were either going to need to remove the windows and start over or come up with a different solution. I noticed that the stock skoolie has a little lip above the windows that directs falling water away from the top/open part of the window. Unfortunately, it seems to drop it straight onto the bottom lip of the window, where our foam weather stripping was and the leaks were coming in from.

What would happen if we kept the water from falling on the bottom edge of the windows altogether? That’s when I came up with the idea of putting eaves on the bus. Gutters would also work, but may not be good at freeway speeds. Estimating with a tape measure, we figured out that a 4 inch width attached to the existing lip above the windows should push the water out far enough. We decided to do one eave per window to make installation easier, so we needed a total of 24 eaves, including the drivers window. The majority would be 28″ long. The driver’s window and last windows on each side would be 34.5″ long. Those lengths provided for some overlap and longer than 28″ would provide for even better overlap.

Location	Length	Width	Quantity
Drivers Window	34.5"	4"	1
Last Windows	34.5"	4"	2
Normal Window	28+"	4"	21

[See image gallery at hippiesinforest.forest2sea.com]

Since we removed all of the metal ceiling panels from our bus, we had plenty of extra sheet metal to fashion the eaves out of. Using the metal blade on my parent’s table saw, we started cutting metal. Lots of sparks and nervous fingers later, we fashioned a proof of concept for the driver’s window. CrtrGrl tested it out and it fit perfectly! Next we went down to the local hardware store and purchased small screws and nylon locking nuts (Nyloc) to bolt them to the bus.

We spent the next few days cutting metal. Using the metal blade on the table saw, we cut the rough rectangular shapes out of the skoolie ceiling panels. Then I used an angle grinder with a rough sanding pad to get them into the right dimensions with smooth edges. Finally, CrtrGrl painted the edges with metal primer to keep the rust down.

[See image gallery at hippiesinforest.forest2sea.com]

Installing and Testing the Skoolie Eaves

To install the new eaves, I used a trigger clamp at each end to hold each eave to the bus lip, while I drilled holes through both for the screws. For the longer pieces, I used 3 screws and for the rest, I used 2 screws. With the nyloc nuts, each screw was secure and the eaves couldn’t move at all. The angle of the existing bus lip provided a great angle for the eaves to push the water away from the windows.

Once all of the eaves were installed, we tried another simulated rain test. I stood up on a ladder with the hose and sprayed the roof of the bus. The water ran down the sides of the roof and off the eaves. The water didn’t touch the windows! CrtrGrl figured out that we could even have the windows down a little bit in the rain without any water getting in. The rain test was passed, at least rain without wind. Of course, the windows could still leak if the rain is coming down sideways!

The final test was driving with the eaves. Since they just present a very thin profile from the front of the bus, I knew it should be low risk. During the full day of driving the bus from NorCal to Washington, I didn’t notice any issues with the eaves. No weird whistling or flapping. They seemed to be secure and wind-proof. The windows that we replaced the glass with metal inserts were a different story entirely, a story for another day.

CrtrGrl and I hope this detailed description of what we did to fix our skoolie window leaks will help others! We hadn’t seen any other skoolies with them, so we thought we should share how our frustration led to the idea. If your skoolie already has them, let us know in the comments! We’d also love to hear if you were inspired by us to create some of your own and how they worked for you!

The post Skoolie Build Diary – Fix Skoolie Window Leaks (Eaves) appeared first on Forest2Sea 2 Hippies in the Forest.

Skoolie Build Diary – Part 1 – Demo

Scott McGee — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 16:42:45 +0000

This is Part 1 of our build diaries – the start of our skoolie demo (aka demolition) of Skoolie Woolie. CrtrGrl and I plan to document our trials and tribulations during our skoolie build here. We want to help others who have been inspired by the tiny house, simple living / minimalism movements or want to pursue a more nomadic lifestyle. Our inspiration to reduce our impact on the planet is due to mass extinctions, shrinking wildlife habitat / deforestation, and climate change. We also want to reduce our living expenses so that we can spend more time living.

We have a rough design for our bus, no experience with tools and a can-do attitude. With help from family, we plan to learn as we go from the University of YouTube and the helpful community at skoolie.net. Our plan is to park Skoolie Woolie on some land in the Pacific NorthWest (PNW) and use it as a stationary tiny house. You can find our other articles on our skoolie here.

[See image gallery at hippiesinforest.forest2sea.com]

Skoolie Woolie’s Specs

Here’s a little bit of info about Skoolie Woolie to start off:

The chassis is a 1993 Ford B700 and the school bus stuff was built by Carpenter
It’s a 38 feet long dognose bus – the engine sticks out in front of the bus
Skoolie Woolie has a relatively small Cummins 5.9L diesel engine with over 250K miles on it (odometer doesn’t really work, so not sure how many exactly)
It has an Alison AT545 automatic transmission
The original bus had 12 rows of seats for up to 72 kids with two emergency exits
Our bus was a real school bus in the Bakersfield School District (in California), until it was retired
It doesn’t have an air conditioner and just a driver’s heater

[See image gallery at hippiesinforest.forest2sea.com]

Skoolie Demo

The previous owner removed all of the rows of seats, which helped us out a bunch! We’ve heard that’s no fun and we’re glad we got to skip that step. He also painted the exterior a nice tan color, so Skoolie Woolie is no longer school bus yellow.

Our initial goal is to strip our bus down to metal in order to see what we have to work with, and then build it back up. We want to remove all of the old insulation and install our own. We’re not too concerned about rust, but the right time to find out is now! In order to do that, we have to remove everything.

[See image gallery at hippiesinforest.forest2sea.com]

Removing the Ceiling Panels

To kick off our skoolie demo, we started removing the rivets in the ceiling panels and top side panels at the rear of the bus. We lucked out by choosing a Carpenter bus, since all of the interior rivets take a T20 Torx (or star) bit. Other bus manufacturers use smooth rivets and each one has to be cut off. Each panel is bolted in (like an airplane) and also tucked in to each surrounding panel.

While trying to remove the rivets using a cordless impact drill, we stripped some of them. This was the least fun part of removing the ceiling panels from our skoolie. Due to lack of knowledge with all of the tools we had at our disposal, I used a hammer and small wedge (the hard way) to break off the heads of most of the stuck rivets. If we had it to do over again, we would have started with a metal cut-off wheel from an angle grinder, which we started using towards the end.

In order to free up the ceiling panels, we unscrewed and disconnected the interior lights and speakers. We plan to put in our own lighting and speakers, so we won’t be using the factory equipment. After all of the rivets were removed and equipment disconnected, we removed the panels. Even with all of the rivets removed, we had to pull hard and bend the panels to get them free.

[See image gallery at hippiesinforest.forest2sea.com]

Fiberglass Insulation

Underneath the ceiling panels, we found fiberglass insulation. At first, we started to remove each sheet of insulation as we removed each ceiling panel, all while wearing a face-mask. Some of it had to be removed immediately because they started to hang down. But after getting itchy fiberglass on my skin, I decided we should wait and do all of the insulation in one batch. We also decided to wear more protective gear when working with it.

[See image gallery at hippiesinforest.forest2sea.com]

Getting Access to the Plywood Floor

Next, CrtrGrl stripped the floor down to plywood. She removed all of the metal strips along the outside of the floor and the central walkway strip. She also removed the metal strips outlining the two wheel wells and removed the rubber covering. Then CrtrGrl used a strong flat head screwdriver to separate the rubber floor covering that was glued to the plywood. Finally, she rolled the rubber down the length of the bus until it ripped off. Word of caution – use your core muscles as this can be hard on your back!

[See image gallery at hippiesinforest.forest2sea.com]

Coming Up

In our next build diary, we’ll cover the second part of our skoolie demo. We’ll finish stripping the floor, remove all of the ceiling insulation and take on the driver’s heater. You can find our other articles on our skoolie here.

The post Skoolie Build Diary – Part 1 – Demo appeared first on Forest2Sea 2 Hippies in the Forest.

Who Is Building Our Skoolie?

CrtrGrl — Sun, 03 Nov 2019 22:35:09 +0000

Skoolie Build Adventures Story Time

Scott & I can’t believe the adventures we’ve already had & we haven’t even begun building out our skoolie yet! It has been an emotional roller coaster, but we’re happy to begin unveiling our beautiful beast from hibernation to start making our dreams come true. Let the skoolie build adventures begin!

[See image gallery at hippiesinforest.forest2sea.com]

This blog is our first of our “Skoolie Adventure Diaries”. We will continue to share our ups & downs of our journey with the skoolie community. Our blogs will be raw, blunt & up front. We want to keep things real & honest. We welcome comments, suggestions, questions & opinions, but please keep it respectful. On that note, let’s begin with some details of the wild ride we experienced from buying to finally getting things ready for the build.

Meeting Our Skoolie

We had some luck in finding our bus. It didn’t take long at all. We started with a little research online & bumped into 2 different bus photos via a newspaper ad. We knew when we saw our bus that it was THE one (Neo…er, SkooWoo). I had already picked out the name, Skoolie Woolie, when I saw the photo.

The next luck we had is that the previous owner already took out the seats, saving us a chunk of time & aches. Scott took to driving the bus rather quickly, even though it’s always a little nerve-racking for him. We parked our new beast at his parent’s place while we made plans to get him registered at the DMV. There we had another surprise.

[See image gallery at hippiesinforest.forest2sea.com]

Registering Was A Cinch

The rep at the DMV that helped us was more lenient than expected. She registered the bus as a motorhome without having it built out & without an inspection. We kept looking at each other like, “Is this really happening”? Indeed it did, because we walked out with new plates!

[See image gallery at hippiesinforest.forest2sea.com]

Our luck would continue when we discovered Humble Handcraft to build out our bus…or so we thought. Their tiny homes were showcased on a popular & one of our fave YouTube channels, “Living Big In a Tiny House”.

Luck Had Run Out

When we checked out HHC’s website we were thrilled on how they seem to have the same values as ours. Indeed, the woodwork is stunning too. We also thought we had a great conversation with Ryan, the owner, who gave us hope that he could build what we were looking for, within our budget. After discussing our design ideas over the phone, Ryan was as excited & anxious as we were to get started on the build. Little did we know that our luck had reached its peak & it was heading down, a steep way down.

[See image gallery at hippiesinforest.forest2sea.com]

Our first shocker was when Ryan more than doubled the costs of what was told to us initially. Of course, this was after we drove 6 hours (there & back) to drop off SkooWoo & paid a $6K design deposit. Ryan explained he didn’t realize how much work & hands were needed to build out our bus, even though Ryan understood the design we wanted. I felt this was a HUGE red flag & personally, wanted to pull our bus out of there, but we were also on a deadline.

Don’t Judge A Builder By His Wood

Scott, who is more forgiving than I am, convinced me to give Ryan the benefit of the doubt. Instead of picking up our bus, we tried to work with Ryan in reducing costs by pretty much revamping our design. Unfortunately, his customer service did not match his skills with wood working.

The following are some of the many ways Ryan represented himself & his company:

His spreadsheets were too vague, making it unclear where we could cut costs. Scott made suggestions on changes that would be helpful to us, but they were never implemented.
He was often flaky. Numbers were constantly changing, often increasing rather than decreasing in cost, even as we cut features out of our design.
He avoided responding to some questions we emailed.
He seemed to forget things we talked about. One moment, he would agree to something, but it would not be reflected in the updated budget.
He admitted to his mistakes more than once, yet, he continues to defend his service was worth more than the 6K deposit we paid.

Trust Your Instincts

In the end, after over 2 & 1/2 months of unprofessionalism & constant disappointment, we decided to cancel the design process & pick up our bus. This wasn’t easy. Ryan assumed we pulled out of the project because we found someone else. Therefore, he tried to extort more money from us, $5K to be exact, for “damages”. However, HHC’s contract allowed for cancellation with refund.

[See image gallery at hippiesinforest.forest2sea.com]

We picked up our bus & discovered it had minor damage. Of course, nothing was said to us about it. When we brought it up, Ryan behaved as if he was unaware of the damage. To our relief, he paid for the damage, but still kept our $6K. We had to request a detailed receipt. What he gave us had numbers that were rounded to be exactly $6K. Sometimes I would think back, wishing I had trusted my instincts earlier.

To this day, Ryan has not returned any of our money, but claims that he completed the work & then some. Yet, we have no design & only a messy budget spreadsheet to show for our $6K. We’ve tried to be civil throughout this entire project, which wasn’t easy. This unfortunate situation really tested our patience. The entire time, he only focused on how everything affected him. Even when he doubled our costs, he admitted it was his mistake, yet he didn’t even offer a way to make up for this or any of the other mistakes he had made. He never made us feel that our satisfaction, as customers, was a priority.

Embrace Challenges

The steep drop of this ride really kicked us in the gut pretty hard, but our journey has taken us back up another hill. Another door has opened & new skoolie build adventures are about to begin. Scott’s family decided to move to Northern California, which changed our plans, giving us more time to build out our bus. So, we decided to build it out ourselves with the help of his family’s expertise.

[See image gallery at hippiesinforest.forest2sea.com]

We have zero knowledge of using tools, let alone building anything. Scott’s first & only building experience was our FJ’s camp kitchen, with help from his family. We’re looking forward to learning from the skoolie community as we go. We already met some kind locals, who offered their help in building out SkooWoo. Of course, our family will be helping too. We’re due for some positive vibes now.

Learn From Others’ Mistakes

We’re sharing our story with all skoolie & potential skoolie/van life/tiny home people here, in hopes it is less likely that our unfortunate situation happens to others. Do extensive research of who to entrust your vehicles/homes with. We were somewhat rushing the process because of a deadline we needed to meet, but it’s not worth your hard earned money or time not to do your homework. Even those who seem so kind at first, can take advantage of their clients to fill their pockets. But, we’re slowly making new skoolie build adventures & can’t wait to share them with all of you!

[See image gallery at hippiesinforest.forest2sea.com]

For those interested in copies of our complete details of our experience with HHC, please email us at info@forest2sea.com. We can provide you with copies of the spreadsheets, email exchanges, etc. A quick note, Living Big In A Tiny House & those affiliated with LBITH have nothing to do with our experience with Ryan & HHC.

Don’t forget to follow Skoolie Woolie on social media (Facebook & Instagram) for more photos & video clips while we make SkooWoo into a handsome tiny home!

The post Who Is Building Our Skoolie? appeared first on Forest2Sea 2 Hippies in the Forest.