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2014/11/05 By John Leave a Comment

Trips and Progress

When we last left off, we still had water flowing uninterrupted into our precious living quarters. Well, maybe it was only a trickle, but it was still entirely too much. With the bus stripped back down to bare metal, we tried to figure out a solution. But the bus still had obligations to meet.

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Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival in Oak Hill, NY. The bus was profoundly missed last year, and this summer was a welcome change of pace. The deck added a fun perspective to the weekend, and held a few brief jams. We’ve been nothing but impressed with its strength.

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We spent Grey Fox without a splinter of wood inside the bus, and when we returned home we went back to stopping the leaks. It was Nishi who discovered how to properly seal the windows. It doesn’t take too much caulk, but it does take a lot of time and patience – her prop skills continue to be valuable. After dealing with the worst windows, we reached a place where we were no longer concerned with water ruining our hard work, and resumed construction. In early October, some friends of ours were getting married, and we made that our deadline for a presentable interior of the bus.

We used new insulation on the walls, thinner than what we had before. Though the insulation I had scored off craigslist had been the right price, the fiberglass paper sides were a tremendous nuisance, and they protruded past the ribs making it impossible to square anything. These thinner, foil covered boards are a breath of fresh air, and will still keep us plenty warm.

Our old insulation fit easily in place on the floor, and we covered it with 1/2″ plywood this time instead of 1/4″. This does give us a more smooth and even subfloor to build on. We skipped the rosin paper entirely this time, as it seemed to provide no benefit.

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We insulated the wheel wells, and began the process of reinstalling everything we’d taken out. We were able to get the counter and the 13′ port bench installed by the wedding, and the two starboard benches were installed shortly after returning home.

We did run into one mechanical issue – the lift pump in our engine stopped working. In brief, the lift pump is what supplies fuel from the tank to the high pressure pump on the engine. Luckily, it was a relatively easy fix, and we were on the road in no time.

Charlie came along to the wedding, and it turns out he’s quite the bus-dog. Though he doesn’t much care for the highway, he’s pretty happy lounging around on the benches and looking out the windows.

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Passive solar heating continues to impress me. We have the entire port side of the bus facing South, so sunny days heat it up nicely. 40 degree differences are common so far, and it’ll be interesting to see how that holds up as the outside temperature drops.

And one last note, we’ve officially changed the domain of this site to bus.life (much better).

Filed Under: Adventures, Updates Tagged With: Festivals, Flooring, Insulation, Leaks, Roof deck

2014/06/17 By John 1 Comment

What’s the hold up?

It’s been a rough spring for the Anne Marie. As the weather warmed up, we started spending more time in there, and began construction of a new unit. It came together quickly, and we set our eyes on installing the woodstove. Taking a closer look at the section set aside for the woodstove, we noticed some water damage on the plywood subfloor and water marks on the insulation on the walls.

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Oh crap. What’s going on?

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Alright – everything out! Yes, that is mold you see growing on our plywood. We yanked out the subfloor and the insulation underneath, then the insulation and spray foam in the walls.

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It turns out we have leaks at most of our windows. It isn’t clear from the photo, but water was getting in from the sides and bottoms of the windows where 25 year old caulk had just given up. We had a taste of this back in the fall, but we were pretty sure the worst was behind us.

The water runs down the ribs to the floor, where it sat underneath the insulation for long after it had rained. At the edges, it would travel up along the sides of the insulation, and reach the plywood subfloor. Bad news.

The good news is that it seems the water is only coming in from the windows and below. We have zero signs of leaks from the roof, and our ceiling still looks great! I’d be lying if I said that this didn’t make us reconsider the whole project. If we had leaks coming in from the roof, I think we’d have thrown in the towel.

As it is, we just have to yank out the windows and put some new caulk in around them.

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The windows come out surprisingly easily, which is a relief. Sealing them up again has been a bit of a challenge. This brings us up to date: we’re still re-sealing the windows, and parts of the walls that are leaking. We’ve had some success caulking windows, and some failures. We’re not really sure what causes the newly caulked windows to leak, and that’s a huge frustration.

I really dislike doing things twice, and this has been a rough few months on us as well, but there’s no way around it if we want this to work. There is an unacceptable amount of water coming into our living area, and we have to stop it.

Filed Under: Updates Tagged With: Anxiety, Construction, Demolition, Insulation, Leaks, Walls

2013/08/26 By John 2 Comments

Subfloor is finished

Found and caulked the leak. It was in a corner of a window. I had appeared to be coming through the Great Stuff, but I now realize it was only coming over it.
With that scare behind us, we finished laying the insulation.

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We covered our 1″ polyiso insulation with 3/8″ plywood.

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The plywood is attached to the bus with 2″ sheet metal screws. We staggered the sheets of plywood and insulation so the seams are not on top of one another.

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And of course, more Great Stuff in the gaps.

Next up is the roof deck. It’s not clear what we’ll be able to do with the weather this week, but we’re waiting until the deck is done before we begin the interior.

Filed Under: Updates Tagged With: Construction, Flooring, Insulation

2013/08/22 By John Leave a Comment

Rain Delay

Rain today is keeping meaningful construction from happening, but it did reveal a major leak! After many storms with the interior bare, I thought I had sealed all of the leaks in the walls, but apparently there was one more. What I’m very confused and concerned about is that it seems to be coming through the Great Stuff! I was under the impression that, as closed cell foam, Great Stuff would keep water from getting in. I poked a portion above the leak and saw water squeeze out. I’m going to have to stall things until I can figure this bit out. If I can find the source of the leak outside, I’ll just seal it there with caulk.

Filed Under: Updates Tagged With: Construction, Insulation, Leaks

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Tags

Anxiety Bed Brick Ceiling Chimney Clearance lights Compost Construction Cooktop Counter Demolition Desk Festivals Flooring floorplan Fridge Hearth Inspiration Insulation Kitchen Leaks Lights Performance Port Bench Roof Roof deck Rust Sink Snow Toilet Tour Upholstery Video Walls Water Heater Woodstove
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