There are numerous systems in the bus, and I remember when we bought Ruby, Todd was very overwhelmed with everything he needed to learn! Aside from having an Allison 8V92 diesel engine (and everything that goes along with that), we also have electrical system (shore, solar and inverted power), plumbing system (marine grade), heating (electric and glycol), construction (marine grade) and compressed air systems (for suspension and braking). So although we have many systems that are in a house, there are lots of extra’s and we are always switching their uses.  Todd has spent countless hours understanding wiring, figuring out part numbers and trying to make things easier to run, manage and handle. We are also not the typical Prevost owners that are bajillionaires with open pockets to spend at  mechanic shops, on electricians, or plumbers. Todd does his all our maintenance like oil changes, filter changes and adding all types of liquids through holes and pipes and fixing the compressed air leaks. All these usually required him to get under the bus, which is dangerous and claustrophobic. In June, he noticed a very large spruce tree down in the back 40, he thought hey, I can do something with this to turn it in to bus ramps! And so, he did. Todd feels way safer under the bus now!

Doesn’t look as high from this angle.

The time we had Ruby on the ramp….

Front end work

Stupid covid kept us at the family land for long stints of time that we weren’t really excited about, because we always want to be exploring. But we used the time to do some overdue maintenance on Ruby. Considering she is 31 years old, and almost everything was original, we needed to do some upgrades. This year we did all these things:

– renovated the shower walls and installed new showerhead and taps

– new bathroom sink taps

– overhead fan above the bed (retro white and gold!)

– added inverted (from solar) power to bathroom, bedroom fan and back bedroom

– new marine style hot water tank and removed pressure tank

– lined the water/wastewater bay with puck board

– installed cargo / rooftop deck on the roof

Cargo rack doubles as rooftop deck. Plan to expand this for safety, better seating and possibly another solar panel. Stay tuned.

Secured access to the rooftop deck.

After this summer of fixes and upgrades, Todd feels a lot better about understanding all the systems we have going on now. We are now be ready to roll down to Texas for the winter!