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Step 2Insurance, parking, and hassles
If you need to move your bus at all, you'll find out quickly why being legally designated a Motor Home is important. Even the legal minimum liability policy on a 10 ton commercial truck is pretty pricey. Only an insurance agent can give you an idea of what your cost will be, but in most cases, a Motor Home policy, if you can find one for a home made conversion, is about a tenth the cost. Only one carrier, out of the dozen I called, was even willing to consider covering such a vehicle. GMAC. I would love to offer more solutions here, but I simply can't. The policy was affordable, however, and cost about the same as my passenger car coverage for similar limits. Forget about comprehensive.
Skoolie.net was an excellent resource for this once again. I don't want to pick favorites, considering all the EXCELLENT web resources out there, but the experience shared by others on that site was invaluable for the entire project. Chances are, if you spend some time looking, someone from your state will have something to share about the whole insurance and legal process.
So now that you can drive your bus on the highway, where to you put it? If you own land in the sticks, you can probably skip on ahead. If you're like a lot of us, however, parking and working areas can be the deal breaker on a project like this. You need to know that when you start work on your bus, you will be able to remain in one spot until you finish. Of course, 'FINISHED' is highly subjective.
Will your township or municipality fine you for parking? Again, a little research was able to answer this long before I spent $2000 and a week of my time to bring the behemoth home. My neighborhood association defaulted to the county regulations, and with a call to the code enforcement phone number found online, I learned that I was able to park an RV on my yard as long as I did not extend past the average setback from the center of the road. A few of the more uptight neighbors called in to complain about 'that ugly bus', but the 'Motor Home' designation on the title put that fire out quickly.
The DEP was called in as well, because of complaints that I was 'running a paint and body shop'. The agent was extremely nice and once I showed him that I was using a roller to apply the paint and using a ground cloth to prevent spills, they had no problem. As long as I didn't use a sprayer, the neighbors could do nothing.
Before I sound like I'm some sort of bad neighbor, I should say that everyone we dealt with was supportive of the project with the exception of two houses. The county inspector told me that three to four complaints a week came from those two people so you can draw your own conclusions. If you're on good terms with your neighbors and keep your work area neat, people shouldn't complain. You are on good terms with your neighbors, right?
If you cannot park your bus near your house, you'll need to rent/borrow/barter space where you can find it. You'll want electricity to run power tools and water for cleanup. Shade is always nice and, of course, security. Commercial RV storage can vary widely in costs and some allow you to work on your bus and some don't. You'll want to make sure you can afford to stay parked there for at least a year. While a committed individual can finish a project like this quickly, most of us end up taking a little longer than expected. Once the bus to a state where you no longer need "work space" and you are ready to move in, you will need to find a park that will take conversions, but that will be addressed in a later article.
Skoolie.net was an excellent resource for this once again. I don't want to pick favorites, considering all the EXCELLENT web resources out there, but the experience shared by others on that site was invaluable for the entire project. Chances are, if you spend some time looking, someone from your state will have something to share about the whole insurance and legal process.
So now that you can drive your bus on the highway, where to you put it? If you own land in the sticks, you can probably skip on ahead. If you're like a lot of us, however, parking and working areas can be the deal breaker on a project like this. You need to know that when you start work on your bus, you will be able to remain in one spot until you finish. Of course, 'FINISHED' is highly subjective.
Will your township or municipality fine you for parking? Again, a little research was able to answer this long before I spent $2000 and a week of my time to bring the behemoth home. My neighborhood association defaulted to the county regulations, and with a call to the code enforcement phone number found online, I learned that I was able to park an RV on my yard as long as I did not extend past the average setback from the center of the road. A few of the more uptight neighbors called in to complain about 'that ugly bus', but the 'Motor Home' designation on the title put that fire out quickly.
The DEP was called in as well, because of complaints that I was 'running a paint and body shop'. The agent was extremely nice and once I showed him that I was using a roller to apply the paint and using a ground cloth to prevent spills, they had no problem. As long as I didn't use a sprayer, the neighbors could do nothing.
Before I sound like I'm some sort of bad neighbor, I should say that everyone we dealt with was supportive of the project with the exception of two houses. The county inspector told me that three to four complaints a week came from those two people so you can draw your own conclusions. If you're on good terms with your neighbors and keep your work area neat, people shouldn't complain. You are on good terms with your neighbors, right?
If you cannot park your bus near your house, you'll need to rent/borrow/barter space where you can find it. You'll want electricity to run power tools and water for cleanup. Shade is always nice and, of course, security. Commercial RV storage can vary widely in costs and some allow you to work on your bus and some don't. You'll want to make sure you can afford to stay parked there for at least a year. While a committed individual can finish a project like this quickly, most of us end up taking a little longer than expected. Once the bus to a state where you no longer need "work space" and you are ready to move in, you will need to find a park that will take conversions, but that will be addressed in a later article.
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