Sewer Lines

This is the toilet flange.  The future home of the throne.

To the right of the toilet hole is the drain and vent for the washing machine.  Apparantly, washing machines need to breathe also.  Who knew?

 

Ta-da!  It isn't totally set up in this picture but it is sitting in the right spot waiting for some bolts.

 

This hole in the floor is for the sink drain.  Probably 2 1/8" or so...the PVC pipe is  1 1/2 ID".  It was sort of scary seeing all these holes in the floor! 

All the plumbing all over the cabinets.  That hole is behind those cabinets.

Here is where the real fun begins.  This is all dry fitted first - just making sure that is all fits.  We don't want any surprises when it comes to the sewer lines.

This is the drain from the kitchen sink heading towards the trunk line.

Interior of the bus when all the plumbing was going on.  You can see the appliances in the back of the bus in this photo.

Jim Bob used cardboard to cushion the chicken poo covered ground.  Yummy.

The black tip line is the bathtub drain.  It meets with the kitchen sink line and then heads over to the trunk line.

The kitchen sink line rolling down the line.  All in all the sewer lines to about two days.  One day to dry fit and one day to glue it all together. 

Water Lines

So all of the water lines are 1/2" PEX tubing.  Jim Bob bought it off of EBay in a ginormous roll along with all of the crimp rings and most of the brass fittings.  The crimping tool was borrowed from a brother from a different mother, Hunter.

Here is the crimping tool in action.  You have to put these little crimp rings on each joint and squeeze them shut and it makes a leak proof connection.  Super cool stuff.  Plus - it doesn't bust wide open like copper tubing when it freezes (we learned that mistake from the previous bus when we had 15 holes from frozen water in our copper water lines - crazy business!)  Although Jim Bob is a huge fan of sweating pipe, we went with the easy, flexible PEX tubing. 

The red tool is the cutter, the blue is the tubing and purple are the 90 degree corners.  PEX is flexible but to make it nice, clean and no crimping where it is not needed they make these nifty corner things.

When he was running the water lines there were these little packages everywhere of brass connectors, toppers, unders and everything else...it all looked the same to me but Jim Bob had the know how. 

We have water on both sides of the bus.  This side has the kitchen sink and shower and the other side has the washing machine and toilet. 

All the water lines do have a slant towards the drain in case of a hard freeze (another lesson we learned from previous bus.)  The slant will allow the water to drain out of the lines and not sit and freeze.  The hole in the floor is for the bathtub.

Hot and cold water lines on each side of the bus too.  You can see the little black crimper thing and then the brass connector here. 

Washing machine hook up.

The PVC line is the drainage for the washer.  It also has a T in it to allow some venting for the washing machine.  The T runs out the side of the bus. 

The blue lines are hot and cold water for the washing machine.  It T's off to the left for the toilet and the continues on to the right for the ice maker.

Here is a nice shot of the 90 degree things in action.  It also shows the PVC protector tubes that Jim Bob put in to protect the PEX from the metal floor.  We didn't want the metal layer to cut the PEX tubing up.  Great idea Salazar!  So smart.

This is what we saw for days and days and days while he was working on all the lines!  Lena Marie would go outside and stand at his feet and talk and talk.  It was sort of like confession in a weird way...

The boiler valve.  Water comes in and we get clean clothes, clean hinies and yummy water to drink!  Life is grand.

Gas Lines

The Gas Lines. We ran 1/2" black pipe for the gas manifold in the bus.

Here is the manifold under the bus.  The piece of 2x4's are bracers so the black pipe won't shift around during transportation and/or normal use.  The pipe running to the left goes to the hot water heater and the T running off to the right (that doesn't have a pipe on it in this photo) goes to the 100 lb propane cyliner. 

Closer view

We put a nice little 20,000 btu blue flame Kozy World heater in the bus to keep us warm on those cold winter days.  Hopefully we will have some in Gonzales.  We got the heater from this site: www.masterdist.net

Here is the heater attached to the wall and connected to the gas manifold. 

We designed the bus so that we would only have to run the gas to one central spot for the heater and for the stove/oven.  So the manifold comes up through the floor and goes left to the stove (which in this photo is not hooked up yet and right to the heater.)  Easy shmeasy.

So that sounded easy but the gas manifold also feeds our on demand hot water heater that is mounted to the outside of the bus.  Here is JB deep in thought...probably thinking "WTF? How did I get myself into this?" 

Here is the two stage pressure regulator.  It drops the propane pressure down to 11 pounds from a 100 pound cylinder. 

Here is our awesome little on demand hot water heater.  The brand name is Takagi T-KJR2-OS.  It has a little heater in it to keep it warm when it freezes...so it is fine to mount outside.  It works really nicely and makes the water HOT fast...lovin' it.

This shows the gas line coming into the hot water heater from the gas manifold underneath the bus.  The valves that do not have lines hooked up are the water lines coming in cold and going out hot.

Electrical

Alright, we are set up with 50 amp service.  The bus is divided into four quardrants - a breaker for each.  Plus, a designated breaker for the two air conditioners.  I think we have 18 or so plugs in the bus.  Now that we are living in it...we could have had some more maybe... 

All of the electrical lines are exposed Liquitight conduit.  It is basically flexible conduit that glues together like PVC.  Jim Bob was a fan.  Although when we built the other bus, we had such a romantic time bending all of that metal conduit together...sigh...   

The left plug is a twist lock plug that twists into the gray box on the outside of the bus.  The right plug is the 50 amp plug that has two hots, a nuetral and a ground.   That is for all you electricians out there.

This is the 50 amp twist lock electrical box that provides the bus with electricity.  Jim Bob is an Ebay FREAK.  He found most of the boxes, switches, conduit, PEX on Ebay. 

This shot is underneath the bus taking a picture of the electrical coming in and running into the breaker box. 

This shows one of the many holes we had to drill in the floor to bring the electric lines inside.  It is kind of scary to see these holes randomly drilled into the floor (I say randomly but JB new EXACTLY were they were going and how far it was going to take to get there!)  It is all about trust baby.

Here is an upclose and personal shot of our inner workings.  This is the breaker box.  As you can see we have 5 breakers - four quardrants and the ACs. 

All closed in and nice and tidy.

We put the breaker box inside the battery box of the bus.  You can sort of see on the right side of this picture where the electrical box is mounted in relation to the breaker box.  Fun stuff!

Ta da!

As we move more and more stuff into those sea containers, they are getting more and more disorganized.  On one of our trips Jim Bob and Grant built some fabulous shelves that will withstand a hurricane (typical JB fashion).  Now we have a place to put our stuff instead of piling it up on the floor.  The building of the shelves marked a momentus occasion:  the first usage of wattage.  Of course, I took some pictures. 

Ta da! Jim Bob successfully installed the circuit breaker and an electric outlet to run some power tools. 

Here are our hefty shelves.  They fit all the way in the back and go floor to ceiling.  Very nice indeed.

So this is how much power you use when running a chop saw to build two sets of shelves.  Not much, I know.  The electric company didn't even charge us.

Sharing a cold beverage after a nice long day of hard work.  Cheers.

Ford 2600

We also bought a tractor a few months ago.  How cool is that?  One of our friends found a great deal for us and hooked us up with a 1979 Ford 2600 38HP with a shredder on the back.  Jim Bob jumped on that bad boy and took it for a spin.  It wasn't quite as fast as his Harley but it looked like he was having a good time!  With all the rain they are having in central Texas, we are going to be using that shredder real soon!

Our friend, Grant, giving JB a little lesson before he plows down Grant's field.

There he goes!

On this same trip, we moved the play house to the property.  JB joked that he should put his pottery wheel in there and call it a studio!  He is so funny.

Sold!

Holy cow!  I can not believe it has been a year since I have posted on this blog!  Goodness, how much has changed.  We sold our house - that is the biggie.  And now we are rapidly working on the bus to finish it out.  We sold the house about two months ago but had art shows, exhibitions and various engagements that has kept us from working on the bus until now.  SO, these last few weeks and the next two weeks have been and are going to be INSANE.  Throughout the year we have been hauling our stuff to the property and storing it all in the sea containers.  That was such a smart move because now we are not freaking out thinking about all the stuff we still have to move.  Most of the closets are empty, the kitchen has been cleaned out, drawers of clothes given away, furniture sold and the art collection packed up and sitting in Gonzales.  I think we feel pretty good about where we are in the move.  We are freaking out a tad but just the usual worries.  So I am going to post our progress on the bus over the past two weeks.  We might be editing some of these posts as we finish things out.  Oh!  And now we have 4 people living in the bus instead of the three - little Zeb will be a year old next month!

Here is our realtor, Michelle, from Moutain View Properties putting the sold sign up in our yard.  They are AWESOME, hardworking ladies who know their business.  If you are looking for a house in the Big Bend region to buy or sell, check them out!  Highly recommended.