Underneath storage ideas

[Seangie]

Grant - We have found that many great state parks (Big Bend, Zion National....) have dry camping only.  You'll be missing out if you don't carry fresh water.  Also - There is nothing better than pulling off to the side of the road or rest area in the middle of your trip to have lunch and go potty without having to pull into a restaurant or parking lot.  Fresh water is a must have for many reasons.

-Sean


Fulltiming somewhere in the USA
1984 Eagle 10S
www.herdofturtles.org

[Beck]

K home now

Will add a water tank good point

Is it good to have one tank for black and grey combined or?

Just trying to keep it simple as possible and easy to work on if needed down the road

Thanks for the pics great organization

[grayhound]

I use one tank for the gray black and it is matched with size of my water  tank, 125 gals it works well for me.

[Seangie]

Black and Gray combined is not a bad thing.  Gray water smells just as bad if not worse than black.  Also with them being combined you have less chance of "buildup" in your black tank which might happen if you leave it open for a length of time while connected to sewer on hot summer days (it can dry out)

-Sean

Fulltiming somewhere in the USA
1984 Eagle 10S
www.herdofturtles.org

[Lin]

We have a combined black/gray tank and had the same setup on our last coach. It works fine, but you should make sure that you install a gray water bypass of some sort that will let you divert the gray water to the outside rather than into the tank.  We have dry camped many times and ran a hose for the gray water to feed a tree or bush. If you are at the same place for a while, it is relatively easy to pure more fresh water into the system.  However, you will generally have to move or even travel to find a dump station for the waste tank.

[TomC]

I always have the black and gray separate. True the gray can smell, but a cup or two of bleach will kill the odor. Never want to put bleach in the black tank-mixing with the Ammonia from urine will create Chlorine gas. You'll fill the gray tank faster then the black. Then you can dump the gray easier if needed then dumping the tank if the gray and black were combined. Good Luck, TomC

[Beck]

What's the purpose I see of putting plywood down in bay areas, easy to mount stuff to or ?

[scanzel]

Personally I would not do untreated plywood on the floors unless you primed it and then gave it a good coat of exterior latex or oil based paint. If a holding tank leak should occur then untreated plywood could become saturated with water or sewer. In an enclosed bay it would stink and take a long time to dry. I like gloss white as it makes the bays look brighter and is easier to clean when glossy. If you must cushion your holding tanks look for some sheet rubber.

[technomadia]

One option to keep in mind when designing your bays / tanks is going with a composting toilet.

This gets rid of the need for a black tank, and all the 3" dump hoses too - letting you dump your grey tank through much smaller hoses.

And with no water wasted for flushing - your water supply will last a lot longer too.

We have several friends who have gone this way - and swear by it. It certainly has a lot of advantages.

Cheers,

  - Chris

[Beck]

Thks y'all will stay away from plywood and use what is there and also what would y'all say about doing away with propane heater I'm not a fan of propane at all rather use electric heat or wood stove would be cool in bus but no room though

[luvrbus]

That is a gem of a bus you are converting to a rv I would have to think a long time before I did it only 36 ever built. I love those old Becks I have a friend in Houston that is restoring a BM-37 his is number 2 of 66 the anniversary model has a 743 Cummins 165 hp engine neat buses to make into a motor home

good luck

[Iceni John]

If you have your loo directly over the poo tank, and if you have a low-flush loo (like the Dometic 310 that uses only a pint or two to flush), your water consumption will be less than if you have a loo further from the tank that's connected by a sloping pipe.   (That's what I meant when I said earlier that bus conversions are often designed around their loos, which relates to where the poo tank can go.)

One more consideration for the two-tank folk:  have three dump valves  -  one on the poo tank, one on the gray tank, and the third next to the slinky connection.   This way you can back-flush half your gray water into the poo tank to help clean it.   Another thing I've done is to have a separate 3/4" outlet about 1" above the bottom of the gray tank (to prevent any chunks from getting sucked into it) to supply a cheapo impeller-type bilge pump that will move excess gray water into the poo tank.   Because the gray tank will probably fill quicker than the poo tank, even if you irrigate the plants with gray water, this way you can reduce the amount in the gray tank and also add liquid to the poo tank to prevent "clumping" in there.   I put this extra inlet into the poo tank directly above its outlet, so if the dreaded Mound Of Doom is growing down there the gray water should dissolve or soften it.   If that doesn't work, I've also got a fresh water inlet that can jet high-pressure city water straight down through this same inlet to blast any turdmounts into shitty oblivion.   How's that for a stool softener?   Obviously the gray water and fresh water feeds each have their own check valves to prevent backflow, and the top-mount inlet will prevent poo liquid from syphoning out.

Have you noticed that when busnuts start to talk about their conversions, the conversation inevitably gets around to discussing matters fecal.   I guess that "waste management" is a Big Thing in our world!   Isn't life fun?

John

[Seangie]

Grant - I used the plywood in my bays for a couple of reasons.  The fresh water and gray water tanks are "boxed" in with plywood.  There is nothing holding them in place except the plywood box that is built around them. I can simply pull out the wall and either tank would come right out if I ever had to replace it or fix a leak. For the flooring in the bays it makes it easier to slide things in and out,  it is also a layer of insulation in the winter and its easier to screw in shelves, brackets, mounts...etc. 

All the wood is treated with wood sealer and painted with oil based exterior paint.  I've had lots of water spills and never had problems.  10 years down the road might be a different story but we hope to be in a newer bus by then   We painted it black so it never looks dirty.  And it always gets dirty.

-Sean

Fulltiming somewhere in the USA
1984 Eagle 10S
www.herdofturtles.org

[Geom]

In our setup the water tanks are actually under the bed. They hold about 100 gal fresh.
The PO set up a holding tray under the tanks in case one of them leaks, that directs water outside. Which adds a nice bit of additional insurance.
I was originally not thrilled about that, as we would have preferred the under bed storage for other stuff, but that was a minimal compromise. After having had the bus a while and living in it, I actually like the water under the bed. For one, the bed frame and mattress are very heavy, and removing/lifting them would have been very impractical if that was a space we needed regular access to. For another, this leaves us with lots of space in the bays, and which we can configure that as we please.

On that subject, I plan on setting up a tray on bearings/sliders that runs the full (usable) width and length of the bay. That way I can store whatever I want inside the bay and be able to easily access stuff in the middle (which can be a pain to get to) by sliding out the entire floor. There are premade things (called Joey beds I believe), but I could not find one that fits my desired dimensions and I think it'll be a fairly easy thing to assemble with plywood and heavy duty rollers. Anyway, something to consider for access to your bays.

As to the grey vs black split tank thing. Here is my experience. I originally didn't care, as I figured they both dump the same place and the shared capacity is nice, until...
We had been using the bus for a few days, boondocking essentially as we didn't have access to RV parks.  We currently don't have sensors on our tanks. We're working on gauging usage to output and manage it that way. Anyway, on the way to learning those limits, and after a few days of showers and dishes, etc; we noticed that the shower (while showering) was no longer draining! Surprise, tanks are full. Now floating in gray water while certainly is no picnic, the alternative possibility was much much worse. So take from that what you will.
Another thought is that I think a separate black gives you greater options if you want to camp without hookups, longer. You use that capacity a lot less than gray.

We had looked at a composting toilet option. One of the buses we were eyeing had that. It does look interesting, but for me it left a lot of questions. It would be interesting to get a real world usage experience.

I completely agree with John on the three dump valve thing! That makes things very easy to deal with -pull crapbay1, open outer dump, wait, pullgreybay2, flush it all out, close valves, put craptube away, done  
And another note, invest in a good quality craptube. From my understanding that is a fairly common failure point and after a few uses, I can see why
Interesting idea with the overflow connection from gray to black. Might have to see if I can rig a similar thing. Hmmm, more projects

As far as smell, neither tank really has any discernible odor inside or outside the bus, no matter how full they got. I think that is directly attributable to good venting. So I would keep venting both tanks (ours are up through the roof) in mind.

Regards,
George

[Beck]

Thanks for the help guys, this bus has been in my family since the 66 and my uncle converted back then finish in early 70's I just wanting to update it and make it more modern, so a lot of the hard work has been done it's just replacing the old with the new, it's all 110v and has no power inverter only has 2 batteries for cranking and a Onan 8.5 generator but overall the bus is in good shape, it's was a Christian gospel tour bus from 55-63 and then sat for 3 years until my uncle bought, then my dad got it and now I have it, the chassis has around 150k miles on it, but power has been upgraded by my uncle from a 4-71 to s 6v-71 in the 80's the motor was brand new and only has around 30k mikes on motor trans is a 4 spd
Orinally can with 22.5 tires he put 20 on it back then cause they were cheaper now I want to put the 22.5 back on have to find some close by

Thanks for all y'all's help

Grant