This is just a short video – more of a follow up to the two previous. In discussion style, I talk about the special build-outs and particular challenges I faced during my build.
Specifically, there was a C-channel that ran the length of the bus on which all the original benches mounted. I originally thought about taking this down and removing it. But there were two problems.
First, I didn’t know if I would later use it for needing to secure something to the channel – the frame or base for the wood stove was one of these potential future adds that may need more security than what I may have just from the fram alone.
Secondly, I was a little afraid that I would get halfway through removing it and find out that either the bolts went all the way through the walls to the outside (and somehow putteyed over), or made it through some of the spatter board only to stop midway – thereby never allowing me to fully remove it for lack of being able to clinch the nut on the other end.
In either case, it didn’t pose any more of a problem than to cut out the spacer for the channel in the studs and keep moving with the rest of the design. So off I went!
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As for Part 2, the insulation largely reflected the work and effort in Part 1. Not hard. Just time consuming.
Insulation is a straightforward process. It’s the little tricks that you learn along the way that make things easier.
For instance, use scissors rather than a box cutter. This is more exacting, easier, and scissors don’t suffer the quickly dulling effect that razors do.
Secondly, cut about a half-inch over what you need. It’ll bunch up, but on a bus, remember that things wiggle around. This will keep it snug.
Thirdly, because your studs are not likely to be spaced 16″ on center, you’ll want to also keep some seam filler handy. This is often called spray foam. This will be necessary to ensure that your hard work won’t be wasted in those hard to reach places that cumulatively let in all those little drafts and make your heating and colling less efficient.
Remember this step BEFORE putting up your wall paneling. You’ll undoubtedly take them down later when you’re freezing your buttons off and find yourself forced into looking for all the cold spots.
Watch the video for the rest of the details.
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Linus the Land Yacht: Episode 3 – Framing and Insulation Part 1
Building the walls was relatively easy. So was the process of insulating. The tough part is that it takes a long time to measure, cut, recut (if needed) and mount all the studs in the right places. It’s not like you’re working with a home inspector’s curiosity here. There are no standards or regulations to which one must adhere when spacing and placing the beams. It’s all up to how it works out on the particular bus itself. And since each bus and bus dweller are different, so, too, are their needs in construction.
Part 1 of this segment covers the walls. Part 2 is the insulation.
As per the walls, the things I had to consider were the following:
1. I wanted house quality insultion on all sides of my bus (top, driver’s, passangers, and roof). I will be insulating under the bus much later.
2. I would not be bolting into the bus’ frame at all. My design will be “floating” in order to presuppose that the shifting and bending of the bus should be independent of the frame I’m building into it. And,
3. I will be using the frame to mount everything from countertops and showers, to storage, an office and even an elevating bed. So it needed to not only be precise, but given its independence from the bus’ frame, also sturdy.
This called for some preparation. While I got most of my materials for free over the course of the build, studs were not so easy to come by. More than that, it’s probably just a better idea to buy new ones that are guaranteed not to have been infiltrated by borers and various fungi. These I decided to buy from Home Depot. I wound up using upwards of 60 from start to finish. The bulk of the rest of the materials would be salvaged, upcycled, donated and even repurposed. Check out the video for how it all came together.
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Gutting the bus was no easy business. But it was nothing compared to laying out a several-hundred-pound sheet of roofing rubber on the top. It wasn’t just heavy, either. It was blistering hot, absolutely enormous, it involved noxious chemical adhesives, and I had to make all the right cuts the very first time, or I would have to go out any buy an entirely new roll (also, not the cheapest material in the world.
To get the seats out of the bus, was only half the issue. Getting rid of them was also going to be a part of my challenge. Good thing Craig’s List still has some good souls around. I actually had a pretty difficult time unbolting some of the legs around areas of high traffic. The rust that was built up was due mostly to picking up passangers over the years who clearly had some muck on their boots.
When Craig’s List came through, it delivered to me a nice older gentleman named Bob, who, as luck would have it, not only had a need for a metric shit ton of shuttle bus seats, but also had a box truck in which to cart them off. If that wasn’t enough, he even came prepared with some griding bits and together we took care of all the seats.
I kept five in total – four to create a kitchen table (that I will talk about in a later video) and one with an arm rest that I will be saving for a passenger’s seat – also which I will be discussing later. That one is actually going to go on top of the battery bank that stores the solar power that I have planned. Oh, I’m looking forward to some serious fun.
End seats.
It’s hard to tell by all of this post-apocalyptic scenery that I actually have a vision for what the bus will look like at the end of all of this work. But I see good things.
To get the ball rolling, I had to gut the bus. This meant the seats, the ceiling and even some hardware on the walls and in some of the nooks.
First, the seats. Then the ceiling. The ceiling was actually a pretty big challenge. Not only was it in such bad shape that I literally had to rebuild much of it, bolting jerry-rigged plywood to the underside of the ceiling just to avoid larger supports that might later hinder my placement of insulation. But it was so hazardous, in fact, that I canceled my filming plans. It wasn’t just dusty and grimy, there were pockets of water that would suddenly gush down from the rafters once I got certain parts of it unscrewed. There was also this nasty chemical glue left behind. It was so thick in some places I couldn’t even get the wood down from where it was connected. It was in pretty bad shape. Hence, the hard work on laying out an entire sheet of EPDM rubber.
EPMD rubber is an interesting, if jarring material to work with. First off, it’s insanely heavy. It’s the same material that they roof office buildings with. It’s several milimeters thick, too. So nothing is getting through this sheet unless I mean for it to. This would be the material I decided on using to keep from having to plug all the holes.
Unfortunately, this also meant supporting the roof with all new plywood sheeting. In the end, all the hard work would be worth it. But in the mid-summer heat, I’d find myself questioning that logic several times over.
Another challenge of this material is that it requires a special kind of glue. The company that makes it, also makes its EPDM glue counterpart. It’s basically that shit that Batman dropped the Joker into in Tim Burton’s 1989 rendition of the DC cult classic
The tricky part is that once in position, the glue must be applied immediately before unrolling the rubber. Once it’s set, the only thing getting it off is a heavy construction crane.
So, first: it’s heavy. Next, you must cut exactly what you need BEFORE bringing it up to the roof – which means precise measurements on the ground. Then it has to be unrolled, measured for one final round before the glue goes on, and then rolled back up to make room for the lathering process.
Once that starts happening, it must be unrolled inch by inch, being mindful of not only the precision of the lay, but also the coverage of the glue. It’s basically mindboggling that anyone gets this right. Even moreso that I did it right the very first time.
In the middle of everything, it started raining. Ugh! But you’ll see all that on the vide. Enjoy!
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First of all I wanted to say thanks for all the support. All of your wonderful comments have motivated me to stay on top of the edits and put out the entire series of videos documenting the build. Your support has not only kept me motivated to build and document this laborious process, but also to keep editing them with plans to set them adrift in the world wide sea of viewers like you!
I’m happy to announce that construction on Linus the Land Yacht is finally complete. And later today, I will be starting my release of the Linus the Land Yacht series. So far it includes 30 episodes breaking down every secion of the build. So everything from battery banks and electrical wiring, to water pumps, to composting toilets, to on-demand hot water shower. Everything you can think of that goes into tiny homes.
See that subscription section up there to the right? Put your email address there and subscribe to get all my additional notes and journals on each video.
You can also leave comments there, and either ask questions, or ask me for other videos on specific things from the build or my plans or whatever you want!
Thanks for watching, and stay tuned!!
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Having spent 2013 filming in all parts of Malaysia, this documentary showcases six of the nine selected filming locations. Starting off in Malaysia’s cultural hub, I move northward from Malacca to celebrate Thaipusam outside of Kuala Lumpur. From there, I discover street foots, mile-high temples and Malaysia’s smallest and most diversified national park, roaming sand, sea and jungle in Penang. Then I take to the rafting waterways and climb active waterfalls in Gopeng. Following that is a trip through the tea-rich mountains of the Cameron Highlands where I find the world’s largest flower. And I end my journey on a tropical island getaway, snorkeling on Tioman Island.
Check out additional footage from Travel Geek: Documentary Malaysia
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For the rest of the footage, as well as outtakes, extended cuts and extras that weren’t included in this film, check out the “Short Documentary Films” playlist, or select from the links below:
In the final installation of shorts from Travel Geek: Documentary Malaysia, I hike overland from the east coast to the west coast of Tioman Island. Along the trail, I meet up with a nomadic nature photographer, discover giant glider squirrels, snakes, gigantic, old trees and wildlife that hides in plain sight.
Even shrouded in an eerie, noxious haze, the coral blooms under the surface of the seas around Tioman Island, off Malaysia’s southeastern coast, are spectacular. This 20 minute short follows me through the first afternoon of snorkeling three different spots in the area.
This update comes from Northern Laos, right on the Mekong River. I’ve just finished filming in the hill tribe areas of Northern Thailand, and I am on my way to a 48-hour boat ride down the mighty Mekong River right into the Loi Kratong festival where the locals light candles and send them floating down the river by the thousands.
By Saturday I hope to be in Luang Prabang capturing footage of the majestic 7-tier waterfall and Asiatic bear rehabilitation center — ran entirely by Buddhist monks.
Stay tuned and check out all the videos to come from my filming trip through the Mekong region of Laos and Cambodia this month.
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I arrived in Malaysia yesterday and took the afternoon to relax, read my book and escape the dry heat in the paradoxically located “dry heat bubble” of Penang, a small island and financial capital of the country’s northern state of the same name. And if you don’t know (or haven’t read the gobs of other blogs about my visits here since 2009), it’s just off the coast from the mainland industrial shipping complex of Butterworth.
But today’s little jaunt through Penang offered me the same thing I get every time I go there: an amazing peek at a new side of the city. I rented a bike and finally rode throughout the day as I’ve wanted to do for so long.
But why would I want to ride through an arid city center in the hottest time of the day, you might ask? Well, Penang is located on the westernmost side of Malaysia. So the sunrise, and all it’s “golden hour” light is robbed from it by Malaysia’s central mountains. And then, because of the city is located on the eastern shadow of the largest and most prominent mountain on the island, Penang Hill (as it’s colloquially known, or Strawberry Hill as it’s historically known, or Bukit Bendara as it’s officially known), there’s also no sunset.
Why is this so important? Well, if you’re not a photographer, it’s probably not — especially since the only beaches, which might otherwise make it’s emerald-green seas enjoyable, are shored by polluted waters. The removal of just a few hours on either side of the mid-morning and late-afternoon sun, the light that photographers live for, makes for harsh shadows and bitter, wincing faces, and pale, shallow color pallets, and generally unattractive shots all around.
But, knowing that going in, it makes exploring and taking risks as a photographer much more amicable. And even in the stark heat that beats down on this island city, it’s actually winter here. So it would still be much worse in the northern hemisphere’s summer months. So what better time, I figure.
In any case, I rented a bike and made my way down Beach Road to Midtown, where I found a construction crew had left the gate open to the property they had been charged with cleaning. So, naturally, I welcomed myself in and began filming and photographing.
A note about this video: This would be the first actual time that I am using my DSLR to make a video that I intended on uploading to my YouTube channel. So you might notice that the focus is off on the A-Roll sections of the film. That’s because I had the focal length set on what I thought was my head. Being along and having no one to set it on me in-frame, this was the result.
I’ll have to work on that. But I must say, I did enjoy only carrying around one camera body and getting all my photography as well as my video content for today’s blog. Quite exciting. So perhaps look for more of that in the future. I do like the versatility. But the constant focusing was driving me a bit nuts. No tripod either. Again, just went out shooting for an update. Nothing special!
Coming soon, I’ll write up my experience with the visa scam situation (and what to look for, as well as how to minimize your costs) and watching the transvestite hookers at work. Interestingly, the Indian guys really seem to like them. Who knew!?
The album from today, as well as from when I was here earlier this year, should be coming out soon on www.cyleodonnell.com.
