Project HouseBus : Let There Be [Less] Light

One of the things that people are drawn to in a bus is the amount of light due to all that glass. Yes, it looks great; I am sure you have seen the images on instagram

I might have used AI to tweak this stolen one.. just a little bit

Anyway, all that glass may look great and be awesome for instagram, But in the real world, it’s not without its downsides.

This large amount of glass means the walls have very few places to put anything. You’re going to need a bathroom, a kitchen with splash backs, etc.

However, the biggest issue with all that glass is thermal control. The sun streams in, roasting you in the summer, and the heat pours out, freezing you in the winter. We are building an all-seasons space here, so it needs to be comfortable to live in.

Of course, if it were all double-glazed or had some sort of special thermal control glass, it would all be fine, but we don’t have the budget for that, so most of the windows have to go.

I did some research on the “deleting” of windows, and some people go to the lengths of removing them. However, it seems to me that’s a lot of work, makes the bus look strange and ugly, and does not really bring anything special to the party.

So what we decided to do is:

• Clean the windows inside and out to within an inch of their lives.
• Glue them shut and seal them against any leaks using Sikaflex 552 AT.
• Spray the inside of them with gloss black paint.

Okay, hold the phone—do what? Yeah, we decided to cover the inside with gloss enamel paint. Now, anyone who knows me knows I can’t spray paint very well, and the inside is not too pretty. 

But the outside just looks like the darkest window tint you have ever seen.

Okay, so back to the steps:

• Glue thick black plastic over the inside. The thought here is that it will help protect the paint, as of course any scratch on the inside will show on the outside. We have glued this over the windows and right out to the frame.
• Insert some Expol ThermaSlab sheets into the windows. This is more for protection while we are building out the framework.
• The final step, once the bus is framed out, is to have it all spray foam insulated, so the previously fitted Expol will sort of be redundant. But up to this stage it will provide great protection against dropped items hitting the window.

All in all, we think it has turned out pretty well, so far, Time will tell how long and how well it lasts…