Clever Yet Simple DIY Roof Rack Mounts Using Unistrut Channel Skoolie Conversion
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- Опубліковано 23 сер 2024
- One of the benefits of being part of the skoolie community is making friends who are super clever. Thanks to Aaron + Sarah from North Star Journey for sharing your brilliant idea on how to DIY Roof Rack Mounts using Unistrut!
We wanted something modular, that we could change up in the future if we wanted to adjust our roof rack, or add more solar panels. Their idea is simple and streamlined, which is key for a skoolie roof set up.
Though we ended up making some adjustments to their design based on our needs... We think you are really going to love seeing how North Star Journey did their roof rack mounts and how we did ours, so you can come up with a design that fits your bus.
You can follow our friends Aaron, Sarah, and their fam from @NorthStarJourney on Instagram.
#diyroofrackmounts #unistrut #skoolieroofrack
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💑 Who Are BE Adventure Partners?
Our big goal is to inspire others to think outside the box & get creative with life. You see… Life pushed us to want to live differently. Think differently. And BE different.
After being knocked down a few times, and falling deeper into debt we realized we needed to make some big changes. Story after story we kept hearing about people digging themselves out of the financial hole when they decided to live smarter & simpler lives.
That’s when doing a school bus conversion rolled into our lives.
We've certainly have lots in store for you if you want to:
- take what’s old & make it new
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- learn to live more sustainably
- and... BE inspired to think freely
Currently, we are renovating an old school bus into a tiny home on wheels. After that, we are going to take you on a journey to meet the people who inspired us to live a smarter & simpler lifestyle.
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B + E
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I will never be able to express enough how freakin smart you two are! If you don't know about something you learn the crap out of it until your experts!! This was such a genius way to do your roof and so nice of them to help you and send you such a detailed video!! This will give you the opportunity to easily mount so many things!! I can not wait to see your solar panels up there. And it was pretty amazing that you could really Canada it up with those hockey pucks, I never really thought about what they are made of lol. We have had so many days like that where we are in the middle of working up there and it will just start pouring down rain!! You guys rocked another awesome project!!!
MEREDITH and PACO y’all just put the biggest smiles on our faces! We’re both a tenacious set of couples who will not stop when adversity stares us in the face! We pull out a can of whhhoopooppp assssss and make it happen!
We’re also very proud of y’all for the knowledge & implementation in your build! You’re truly creating an art piece!
Thanks so much for watching & participating in the community!
- B+E
P.S. Love y’all!
Typically you want a minimum of three inches of clearance under the solar panels to allow proper cooling. Mounting height should be minimum of three inches to a maximum of 10 inches. Distance from edge of roof is a minimum of twice the mounting height. 😎 Awesome and amazing watching the building process. 😃
Those numbers are GOLD @Joseph Godwin! Holy smokes we're trying to keep up with comments 😃 Ok, so the solar panels we're getting are 39" wide, so we have plenty of space left to right of the bus for placement. We'll post a pic in Patreon & Get Your Skoolie On showing our roof layout so you & others can see it. We've been sketching it up and your recommendations have been soooo helpful for planning! We appreciate you! Thanks for watching!
- Brian + Erin
@@BEAdventurePartners thanks, look forward to the sketch. J&M and Willy
I was looking for something and after watching this video ordered hockey pucks for my build. Thank you guys!
Great idea!! I never saw hockey pucks used this way, but it's brilliant!!! I couldn't help but notice how beautiful your location is from the roof of your bus...so pretty!
We had never seen hockey pucks used like this either (Until we talked with Aaron from North Star Journey, where he used ledger spacers, which look like hockey pucks, to do the same...)
Yep! Ontario, Canada is a beautiful province! Thanks so much for watching!
- Brian + Erin
Thank you all so much! We are doing a 91 International Skoolie Conversion. The task is daunting, but you all help us so much!
Haha, yeah @Matthew Thomas... There are definitely daunting moments, but don't let them stop you. Slow you down they may... But keep at it. When days get really rough take a break from it, and work on a more fun project. The creative stuff often fuels the brainy projects. So glad we can be of inspiration to you. Comments like this keep us going too. Sending big love. Keep us posted! E + B
Well done you guys. Watching you step onto the roof off the top of that ladder makes me very happy to have that tall industrial ladder. Sketchy AF!
Hahahhahaha @AllMoMoMostHome Bus! You'd be pooping your pants with Erin! If you didn't notice... I had the tip of the ladder hooked to the grab handles on the top of the bus with a ratcheting strap. However... Our bus is only 10 feet tall... Your's is 20 feet tall... Two residential stories.... You should be scared and have fall pro harness for heights like that!
@@BEAdventurePartners above 10 ft were rolling the dice! I will say I'm not a fan of being up there on the roof since there is currently nothing to grab onto. The extra 27 inches of height creates a very noticeable difference in the level of butt puckering.
OMG pucker up @AllMoMoMostHome Bus... I would 💩 up there! A lot of the times I crawl around like a little baby... But I am getting more comfortable. It takes time. The one ladder we use to get up there really scares me cuz my legs are so short. BUT the other one we have has a flat top to step on, and it's a bit higher... So from now on... THAT is the only ladder we use... Well if Brian wants my help up there ;) Stay safe up on that roof Mr.
Great vid as always. I used uni-strut on my little van as a kayak rack. Needed to carry three and the store bought crossbars wouldn't have been wide enough, weren't rated for enough weight, and cost three times what I spent on the strut and some U-bolts.
P.S. love the hockey puck idea!!!
That is so awesome to hear @Matt Courty! Unistrut is awesome stuff to work with. AND way stronger that some kit you can buy at the hardware store. lol The hockey pucks worked awesome to help seal the holes, and get the struts to the right height for mounting the decking. Hah thanks for your support, and for going back in time to watch these oldies. - E + B too
@@BEAdventurePartners I've always been a time traveler! Shhh don't tell anyone. LOL I'm enjoying going back for these and working my way up to the present. I may never build my own, but the ideas I'm picking up from you guys are useable in other ways too. Plus you're always entertaining and easy to watch. If you want to take a look at my rack.....Uhm my Kayak rack it's on my instagram. Hope to one day meet up on the road!
Love your humor - nice doo there Brian. Are you then attaching from the inside to that screw? Changing now to this way for our rack - it just looks cleaner and not so industrial IMHO. Can't wait to see what comes next👏💜
The rivnut is the inside attachment to the bolts going through the pucks. Think of them as pocket nuts. That's why they used locktite on the bolts, since there is no way of attaching washers and nuts to the ends of the bolts.
Hey @Luey D! I love my new doo! Erin has been working on my mullet for a couple months now. Getting it formed up right!
Rivet nuts are blind anchored fasteners. That means you don’t have to do anything on the back side. All you do is drill a hole, pop the rivet nut, then screw in a bolt. We used threadlock on the bolts to reduce the probability of the bolts ever vibrating loose. That’s the cool part about rivet nuts is that you don’t need a nut & washer on the inside! Be sure to look up the specs of the desired size of rivet nut so you get the right size for your application. They come in a ton of standard sizes.
Thanks for watching!
- Brian + Erin
@@BEAdventurePartners Brian, thank you for clarifying that for me - still gonna do what you're doing tho🤞💜
Luey D happy that explanation helped! - B
You guys are GREAT. I would suggest using a spray can trigger when spray painting. Always improved my results. Don't have my bus yet, bit you guys are my go to on you tube. Thanks
Aww thanks so much @Chris Carden! That means the world to us! Great tip on the spray trigger. We will have to see if we can get our hands on one of those. I was just looking at different types of little sprayers we could hook up to our air compressor, cuz I am SOoOOO sick of the spray cans looking like 💩! 🤓 Anyways... Thanks for hanging with us! - E + B
Nice job on this install B + E! It looks great and I love the repurposing of the hockey pucks for spacers!
Thanks for sharing the journey!
Thanks @Harmony Express.Skoolie! We can't wait to attach stuff to this thing! :) We appreciate you being here! - E + B
Looks great guys! I like the versatility if you ever decide to shake things up on the roof.
Yeah! What’s cool is we haven’t planned out the roof 100% yet... so this will give us the foundation to build it as we need it! Thanks for watching!
- Brian + Erin
YOU BOTH ARE HILLARIOUS !!!!
DRIBBLE DRIP !!! 🤣😂🤣😂
GOOBER GOBBER !!!!! 🤣😂🤣
👍👍👍 INSTANT FAN ❤️❤️❤️
Cool Project. I made a Roof Rack Support Structure on my Step Van with SuperStrut also 👍👍
LOL! You are cracking us up with your comment @HELLA ARTSY DUDE! And your channel name sounds interesting!
Glad you enjoy our humor! We are just two nut cases 😝😂🤣🚌
Where in the world are you?
Thanks for watching!
- Brian + Erin
@@BEAdventurePartners I am in East Texas 👍👍
What y’all did with your roof rack makes me wanna say,
PUCK YEAH !!!! 👍👍👍
🤣😂🤣🤣
Darn tooten!
What's awesome is I, Brian, am from San Antonio, TX! Lived in Austin the majority of the time though! You're step up truck sounds cool! We'll go check out your channel later. Headed out to the bus right now to do some more fabrication work!
- Brian + Erin
Hockey pucks ftw!! Good idea, I like it! Doing to go buy metal today for enclosing the sides. Did the BEap's see where Jim and Debbie's panels got broken from a wind gust? I was surprised it happened while stationary, as I understand it.
LOL @Shay McQuaid! We had to look up FTW! Good one! We totally creaped on your bus! Turns out you are a Reddit hero, and we had seen your stuff all over there without knowing that badass bus was yours! Hehehe. Anyways.. Ya the winds have been nuts up here too! It's a good idea to protect those pannels, cuz the wind is only going to get stronger. Check out Adapt 2030! David DuByne has been researching the change in weather for years, and the patterns. Expect a LOT of wind, rain, and snow! We are going into a mini ice age. It's certainly smart to live in a vehicle that allows you to move locations. Shits gonna get crazy according to this guy. He basically researches weather anomalies across the globe, and explains what's going on. We are learning that whatever you build needs to be bomb proof! Or major wind proof.... Keep rocking it over there man! Your bus is a beauty!
Henry's tropicool helps insulate your roof as well as seal it I see you're preparing for your solar panels and maybe a deck those also absorb the Sun before it can hit your roof so it can cut down on your solar gain in the summertime looking great guys I'm still keeping an eye out for any more steampunk ideas like the puck thing though... we use the same rails on our roof of our barndominium, for our solar panels, we've had 80 mile an hour winds and not had any problems a good product
The tropicool created more problems than it solved for me. Just paint your roof imho...
@KAREN RIGGLE + @Shay McQuaid... We ended up using the Canadian version of Henry's Tropicool cuz we heard of all these things... The stuff we used it called "Cool Flex" by Durock. Our roof looks SOOoooOOo dirty. Anyone we have ever talked to regretted it. We too wish we hadn't used it now, cuz it is so porous that everything sticks to it! In the end it won't even matter that our roof is white because most of it will be covered in solar panels and a roof rack/decking so we can walk easily to the panels if we need to clean them off. If we can paint over that crap... We will before we do anything else up there. We just have to call Durock to see if it's ok to paint over elastomeric paint. We will be using white gloss Rust Coat to go over it likely in the Spring.
Karen, great to hear that the rails works well on your bus, and that you liked that paint. We have found it to be a pain in the butt, and an eye sore...
Parabéns cada dia mais lindo e bem montado vocês dois são demais.
@Claudio Curia - Muito obrigado! Aprenderemos português por meio de seus comentários e do Google Translate! Sorte que sabemos espanhol o suficiente para saber que seu comentário não era espanhol. Ele Ele. De qualquer forma, agradecemos suas amáveis palavras. É emocionante ver todas as peças se encaixarem. Cada pequeno projeto se soma ao todo. É MUITO trabalho, mas certamente vale a pena. Esperamos que faça sentido assim que for traduzido para o português. :) Mais uma vez obrigado por suas amáveis palavras. - Erin + Brian
Very informative! Thanks!
Glad you got something out of this @Lorraine Deveau! We appreciate you being here! :)
Hi guys - thanks for the video and advice. I'm getting ready to add unistrut sections and solar panel onto the roof of our skoolie. 2 Ques: 1) how you decided on rivnuts vs plusnuts? 2) it seems that yall are putting rivnuts in the center of the roof rib hat channel. Why did you decide to attach in the center of the roof rib hat channel and not the flange of the roof rib hat channel? Thanks.
Hey hey @Anand Raghunathan - Great Q's! We didn't know enough about plusnuts at the time, but Brian just told me we would have used them if we had known more about them because they have more pullout resistance than rivnuts.
We positioned the rivnuts to the side of the hat channel so we could see the bottom side of the rivnut to make sure it took.
The other option was to do a through bolt through the hat channel but we didn't want to loose headspace in the bus by having a nut on the hat channel if that makes sense.
And we didn't go into the flange because it was a small target and the size of rivnut we were using was larger then the flange. So it wouldn't have set up properly.
Hope this helps. It is truly a science experiment, and you only know what you know when you know it. LOL
Let us know if you have anymore Q's! Wishing you the best on your project!
@@BEAdventurePartners Thank you soo much for the reply. I'm going with plusnuts and will be exploring the best spot to insert these tomorrow am. What was the length of the bolts that you used into the rivnuts? Think I missed it in the video. Thanks again yall. Be well and stay safe.
@@anandraghunathan9493 great question! Every application will be different based on the material you are going through. We went through a washer, the Unistrut, a hockey puck, roof material, and then into the rivnut. So make a list of all the materials you are going through, add up their thicknesses, and that’s how you get to the length of the bolt you need to use. 😉 hope that helps!
Looks like you can use Plus Nuts with a Rivnut tool if you use a washer to start tightening them down first and go back with the anvil reattached to finish them off.
Are you planning in painting the superstrut/unistrut? And if no how well did it hold up to the elements?
How do you like the rack a year and a half later? I'm thinking about using rivnuts as I am not removing the inside ceiling. Thanks.
Great Q @Homestead Dad! We LOVE it! The Unistrut is galvanized, so we shouldn't have painted it, unless we had stripped the zinc coating using vinegar.... So the paint is chipping. Self etching primer would work too. Anyways... You can't even see it because it's under the "cat walk" ;)
If we were to do it again, we would use plus nuts because they have a wider grip range & stronger pull out resistance. That being said its super strong.
The rivnut hand popping tool SUCKS! If we were to do rivit nuts again we would get the drill mounted tool or the hydraulic one.
NOTE: Some of our rivnuts didn't go in perfectly and we were really happy we could see which ones they were because we didn't have our ceiling in yet. This allowed us to caulk the inside around them to seal them better. No leaks! YAY
Hope this helps.
@@BEAdventurePartners I totally forgot about plus nuts. I'll look into the better tools, I have one of the cheap ones. Thanks so much!
I would highly recommend AGAINST it! This made my schooler roof leak horrifically! And I did it exactly the same way! I used it to mount my solar panels. I even put 52OO over it and that reduced the leak but still leaks and my roof molded. It’s a nightmare!
Love you guys but a serious mullet going on there!
LOL @Pamela Branch... I gotta cut the man's hair in such a way that it shows off what he's got, and let me tell ya... My man has beautiful curls! So we are going for it. Hahha he doesn't seem to mind me giving him crazy cuts. He's never had a stylist do that for him... So now we are gonna see where we can take these locks! Hehe thanks for watching - E
I was like “what the puck”
No way @Joe Drnec! We were like... "what the puck" tooo!
While we're being punny I'll say you did a great pucking job on the roof struts!
AllMoMoMostHome Bus thanks! We pucking appreciate your comment!
@@allmomomosthomebus3895 pucking right! ;)
Didn’t get the notification!!☹️ OMG!! Love the pucks!! Too bad you guys don’t like hockey.. great sport! Looking good, we need to run some ideas by y’all soon. Still figuring out the final floor plan.. always leads to disagreements😂. Hoping to have the fan and shower skylight in this week. Then get the last 6 windows out and put the skins on. Then paint the roof... lots of work! Need to do a current bus tour with all that’s been accomplished.
Great mullet! I need mine cleaned up, it’s a little too fierce as of late! Great video, chat soon! -cam+ kat
Ahhh shoot @Cans Float Bottle Dont... Dang ol' notifications...
Ya... We don't watch sports. Can't help it. I (Erin) LOVE to play sports. Brian has in the past too. I totally miss playing. Anyways... Sounds like you guys are ROCKING IT! Hahah the floor plan is a tricky one to finalize & decide! BUT the beauty of all this is you built it, you can change it, or rearrange it ;) Yaaaa send us a tour of where you are at! We'd love to see, and a pic of your cleaned up mullet! Brian is really letting me go for the gold on this one! Hahah Poor guy only gets a cut every few months.... Anyways... Sending big love to you both! Thanks for the lovely words! - E + B
BE Adventure Partners Keep up the good work... can’t imagine filming while making a custom house🤪. We will send some pics for you soon, too sore and tired to do that lately apparently😂. Much love -cam+kat
Lol @Cans Float Bottles Dont... We are NUTS! Haha this whole thing is nuts! BUT we love it! Thus why it took us days to get back. We've been under the bus. Today is finally a computer day. Hopefully we get a film out tomorrow. Anways... Rest those bods. Love love - E + B
BE Adventure Partners ohhh! Putting tanks in? Can’t wait for the new episode! We would love to make videos but unfortunately they would not be child or pc friendly😂. I don’t have much patience, but I am working on it... the bus gets called names all day! Have a great computer day guys👌🏼
Buen vídeo, enhorabuena y gracias.
¡Hola @Duarte Monteiro À Mi Manera! ¡Muchas gracias por ver nuestro video! en que parte del mundo estas? Estamos usando Google Translate para traducir esto por usted. ¡Ojalá el español sea el idioma correcto!
- Brian + Erin
Hey there @Duarte Monteiro À Mi Manera ! Thanks so much for watching our video! Where in the world are you? We're using Google Translate to translate this for you. Hopefully Spanish is the correct language!
- Brian + Erin
@@BEAdventurePartners Buenas pareja yo soy Portugues , pero vivo en el sur de España, saludos.
¡Muy genial! ¡Ojalá algún día podamos viajar de nuevo a España! Erin ha viajado a algunos lugares de España y juntos nos embarcamos en un crucero que hizo escala en Vigo. ¡Gracias por mirar y comentar! - Brian + Erin
@ Very cool! Hopefully one day we can travel to Spain again! Erin has traveled to a few places in Spain and together we went on a cruise that made a stop in Vigo. Thanks for watching & commenting! - Brian + Erin
Hows this holding up now that its outside the barn? Had to do any resealing yet. About to use this method but worried about the holes in my roof.
Hey hey @Matt Sturgeon... NO LEAKSSSSSS (from the unistrut at aleast!)... We did have a leak on the factory seam not too long ago. It was super annoying... This video will show you that special moment: ua-cam.com/video/6ZXopYix7WE/v-deo.html
However... The unistrut has been AWESOME. Something we would recommend... Clean your roof, and use seam sealer on EVERYTHING up there before you do anything on the roof. Seal up all the factory seams. (That video will show you what we mean by that.)
We have had a ton of rain this summer and the holes from this project and all other skylights haven't leaked once.
Let us know if you have questions. Feel free to message on Insta. - E + B too
@@BEAdventurePartners seam sealer
I’m thinking about doing my solar panel mounts the same, have y’all had any issues with using rivnuts?
So far so good!
Hi guys. I’m flashing back for details since I’m nearing the unistrut installation project myself. Like you I am a bit indecisive, Im uncertain about my solar panel size, that purchase is down the road, but (!) I have my hockey pucks ! How far apart did you put your unistrut ? I have a shuttle, so roof curve is not really an issue, is there a “standard” width for installation ? I’ve watched a lot of videos, that’s a detail not addressed. TIA
WEW that's exciting @islandwitt1! There are so many decisions to make. You may want to watch this video as well, cuz we didn't stop at the unistruts: ua-cam.com/video/-GQTRlbBVSI/v-deo.html
We still have more to do up there, but the weather has gone for a turd. LOL it's snowing.
As for the distance between the unistruts we made that decision based on the shape of our roof, and knowing we were going to add more supports like we did in the video we just shared. As we're sure you know, this project is no joke. You will want to use your own judgement on this one based on the width of your roof, and your plan for your decking, and size of your solar. The material you use as decking will also matter. We plan to frame out each section of decking with angle iron. The material you choose may or may not be strong enough to cantaliever. So that is another factor.
Sorry for the vague answer. It's hard to give you a good answer when we aren't on your roof firing a million questions at you. Unistruts website has specification charts and info on load distribution. Every build is different, so make sure you check out the charts. If you are not sure, consult with an engineer. Ain't nobody want their deck flying off! Send us pics when you are done. We believe in you!
- Erin + Brian too
@@BEAdventurePartners thanks for your reply and great info. I’m only putting solar on my roof, no deck, I’m an old woman who has developed a fear of heights and broken bones. Have decided that I will maximize the spread as best I can, can always modify angle brackets to accommodate as necessary. again Thanks ! I love your channel, I appreciate your intelligent well thought out information 👍🏻🙏🌹
Where did you get Unistruts , I’ve been looking for them in Quebec, with no success.
electric supply house
Hey @Lacroix Cruiser! Fastenal carries them. We got them from a metal supplier. Go to their website & look up the distributor in your area. They were super helpful to us when we called. Thanks for watching! - Brian + Erin
Killer Fun! Nicely done! Do you get much wind noise coming from channel?
That's a great question! We actually haven't driven down the road once we installed the Unistrut. We plan on building a deflector scoop on the front edge of the channel to divert the airflow above the solar panels that will be on the front part of the rack. We'll post a video about that in the future. Thanks so much for watching!
- Brian + Erin
So you used 3/8” bolts with nylon nuts when you could drill into the hat channel, but rivnuts when you had to attach only to the sheet metal? Is that correct? We’re about to do same thing in our build, so currently researching best attachment methods.
Hey there @wooly beast. There are many ways to accomplish this task and this way is what works best for our particular situation. I'm 6'2". So connecting through the hat channel would have dropped our finished ceiling height by over 1" past the hat channel, which would have set our total ceiling height to lower than I am tall. By doing it the way I did & speaking with the rivnut manufacturer about proper application of their product for our installation, each rivnut has something like 900 lb pull out force necessary to pull out of the "sheet metal". Combine that with the number we used, there is a significant force necessary for any of these to even budge. So do what is best for your build as our techniques are not appropriate for all installations.
:)
Happy building!
- Brian + Erin
@@BEAdventurePartners thanks Brian and Erin! I’ll reach out to the rivnut manufacturers as well, that’s a great idea.
Happy to help @wooly beast!
Where did you get the pucks?
We found a guy on FB Marketplace selling used pucks. Come to find out, he works at a hockey rink. So you may call some hockey rinks to see if they have any used pucks for sale. We got them for $1/each vs $5/each new.
We’ve been through some major rain events and none of the holes drilled through with hockey pucks are leaking! They act like big gaskets!
Thanks for watching!
- Brian + Erin
This made my skoolie roof leak horrifically! And I did it exactly the same way! I used it to mount my solar panels. I even put 52OO over it and that reduced the leak but still leaks and my roof molded. It’s a nightmare! I’m at a 40k loss now unless I can somehow remove the racks, patch/weld the holes and put a new rack by side mounting them. And then replacing my interior roof! 😭
Really sorry to hear this. We have not had leak issues at all from the roof rack mounts. However… We have had mold issues in the lower part of cupboards and behind couches on low walls. Busses can be a condensation mess depending on where you live. We had what we thought was a leak from our roof. We tore out the ceiling and insulation to check. It wasn’t a leak at all. It was condensation pouring through the ceiling. Could that be your issue? I dunno… The rivet nuts sure are hard to squeeze… So could be that in your case. I know I couldn’t squeeze that thing, and it was hard for Brian… We love our conversion, but I’m gonna be honest and say it isn’t something I’d do again. Condensation sucks!
@@BEAdventurePartners that’s a great point! Condensation causes the same issues in mine, but maybe the guy who squeezed the riv nuts (cause I couldn’t either way too hard) maybe he didn’t do it well enough. I’ll look into maybe how to undo them 🤷🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️. Thanks for that detail. That does help a ton! ❤️
what the Puck. lol.
LOL! we were punning all day up on that roof!
Thanks for watching @Arthur Perrea!
- Brian + Erin
should have had a white board #lists 🤣🤣
What's funny is that we have a MASSIVE white board in the barn that we have a HUGE list of stuff we need to do... but we haven't been checking anything off! We need to revisit that list and get back on track @Vegan David Box! (BTW... LOVE your avatar pic next to your name! We are running in the same realm of thinking & not eating what's being fed by the media 😉)
Thanks for watching!
- Brian + Erin
the hockeypucks and the unistrut is actually a pretty good idea (though his idea of putting the watertanks up there might not be , it sloches about way up there and the sun is beating down on it and that might cause algae to form in the drinking water , might be good for non pottable water though ) , can hook youre solar and antenna's (cellphone satelite dish tv antenna ) to it eventually , you might need one or two more along the middle (depending on the size of the panels )
you couldve put the connectionpieces on the bottom , i dont think you can now as the locktite makes it verry hard to loosen anything
as for the rivnut aplicator , it works better if you rivit it in stages so not completely screw the rivit on , that way the handles are closer together and you dont have to force so mush , after the first stage tighten it a bit more and finish the rivnut
Thanks @watahyaknow. Oh, we won't be putting water tanks on the roof. We wouldn't want our water to freeze, over heat, OR most important, make our bus top heavy. We need that roof space up there for our solar panels, and a roof rack. It will be important to have a flat surface to walk on if we need to clean the solar panels off, or just hang out and watch the sun rise + set.
We likely won't change how those connecting pieces are put up there now. BUT we did think of a way to get around that. So stay tuned.
Great to know about the rivnut tool. That was our first time to use it. It's all part of the experiment isn't it?! ;) Thanks for watching! - Erin + Brian
the guy you gotten the hockeypuck idea from seemed to intended to put the tanks there ....
Did you guys use 3/8" or 1/2" rivet nuts? Im a bit confused because you said you used a 1/2" bolt with a 3/8" rivet nut. Could you please let me know because I like your design and plan to do it on my bus here soon. How did the hockey pucks hold up? I looked at the durometer and it was harder than a bowling ball. Seems like you would want more flex than that. Thanks for your help!
Hey @Joshua Hartsel! Great question! We used 3/8”-16 rivnuts with matching diameter bolts. You can use up to 1/2” bolts (I think that’s what we mentioned in the film.)
The hockey pucks don’t need to be flexible because they are on a flush part of the roof. And because they are being used as support, if they were soft that would cause problems with deflection of the Unistrut.
Let us know if that helps!
- Brian + Erin
@@BEAdventurePartners thanks so much! Very helpful.
@@Chill_Sergeant happy to help!
"nap"? c'mooonnn... they pucked
lol - when you aren't taking a long sleep (like the traditional 8 hours...) if you call it a "nap" then it seems as though you are taking a LONG nap! Then you don't feel robbed of sleep. ;)
What are the flat bars for
Hey @bruce baker! The Unistrut are for mounting things like solar panels to the roof. Is that what you mean by flat bars? Or are they the flat steel bar stock we used to connect the ends of two pieces of Unistrut together? Let us know & we we can clarify!
Thanks for watching!
- Brian + Erin
@@BEAdventurePartners had put yours on top but mentioned they could be on they bottom also
We
We
We live in
Klamath if coming this way
Yeah we ended up putting them on the bottom in another video, we think it's this one: ua-cam.com/video/-GQTRlbBVSI/v-deo.html
This way the boards can lay flat, and we won't have to route out the bottoms.
Thanks for the invite. Can't wait til we can travel again. The province of Ontario is going into big time lockdown now... 👎
The polyurethane, and lok-tite are just to keep all the caulking gushing holes, until they're dry, and then cleaning up, from getting this age restricted.
Good point @Blue Haired Weirdo! Gotta keep the H2O outta the roof penetrations!
Thanks for watching!
- Brian + Erin
flat washers and locknuts, would be a lot more secure than rivnuts
hap wasner there are a lot of ways to accomplish secure fastening and flat washers & nyloc nuts were part of our consideration. However, we didn’t want to weld in those pieces so that if we ever needed to back out a bolt, using rivet nuts was our best option because they will be closed in the ceiling.
After researching the size of rivet nuts we’re using, the pullout force required to rip one out is over 800 lbs in 18 gauge steel. Our roof material is approximately 12 gauge steel. When installed in a system, the rip out force is exponentially stronger. Also rivet nuts are designed to be used in blind fastener applications for vehicles and industrial usage. We’re confident that they can hold solar panels while we’re driving down the road!
Thanks for watching!
- Brian + Erin
By napping you mean doing the nasty
Hey...it's POST MALONE ....😅
If they chew more gum that works good as a rubber washer to seal around the riv-nuts. No I'm serious. Double Bubble is best.
Too bad we don’t chew gum! Maybe we should start considering how many protrusions we have! Thanks for watching, Mark!
- Brian + Erin
👍🏻😁
🚎😎
I will bet someone will have sore arms and chest the next day
You got that right @TEXAN1845! We were sore everywhere from standing up and crouching down for a couple days! Thanks for watching! - Brian + Erin
@@BEAdventurePartners any com plumbing supply store should have them