How Much Does it Cost to Convert a Shuttle Bus into an RV/Camper/Tiny House?
This is always THE biggest question about DIY conversions. It’s a well-known fact that manufactured RVs are built cheaply but priced outrageously, and that doing the work yourself is almost always going to result in a more affordable rig. But what is the actual number? What should YOU budget for?
The answer is, unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all answer.
You can go to a thrift store and buy cabinetry and throw your existing bed in the back and be halfway to a bare bones conversion for a couple hundred bucks, if you’re into extreme minimalism. On the opposite end I’ve seen van builds with $50k conversions inside $70k vans selling for $200k. It all comes down to what your budget is, what kind of work you want to do, how many friends with skills that are willing to help out, and how long you want it to take.
What Did OUR Shuttle Bus Conversion Cost?
Our build falls in the middle-high end of that range. We funded our build almost entirely from the sale of our first van, with each of us throwing in a few thousand at the end to make sure we could have the bus that we wanted.
Our conversion (not including the bus) cost $26,122. I’m sure that’s a higher number than you wanted to see. I commend those who managed to do a full build for $15k or less - but after doing one myself, without a whole lot of luck and free help, a budget like that is exceedingly hard to stick to. That said, our cost could’ve (and should’ve) been much lower, and let me explain why.
We had a few things working against us during our build. One - the pandemic & associated supply chain issues. Everything we purchased cost more than usual, building materials like plywood being the most effected. We were regularly paying $60+ for a single sheet of 3/4” ply. That alone serious raised our cost by an uncomfortably high amount.
We also had never done a full build before, so we made a lot of mistakes. Buying excess materials, items that don’t work for what you had hoped to use them for, scrapping ideas midway through execution - all of these things lead to wasted budget. It’s very hard to budget for mistakes, but know that everyone makes them and you will too. This is why planning as much of your build as possible in advance is so important.
Related to that second issue is the fact that we had extremely little help with the build itself. Many people are fortunate enough to know carpenters, mechanics, welders, or contractors that happily lend a hand to projects like these. For the most part, we did not. My dad is an electrical engineer who verified that my electrical design was not going to burn the bus down, and my parents were gracious enough to let us complete the build in their driveway with some of my dad’s tools. But we designed, built, installed, tested, and repaired every single thing in this bus ourselves. And when you do things for the first time, they take longer and cost more.
The Budget Spreadsheet for Our Shuttle Bus Conversion
Lucky for you - I did some hard work here so you don’t have to. While we were building, I kept every receipt and tracked every single one of our expenses. I put all of that data into a spreadsheet after our bus was done, and the result is a full breakdown of every dollar we spent, where we spent it, and what we bought. I also have notes on here as to where we could have cut costs down, mistakes we made that raised costs, and alternative, more affordable solutions.
This spreadsheet is free. I wish so badly I had resources like this when I was starting our build, and I hope it can be helpful to whoever needs it now. (That said, it took quite some time to put together and annotate, and if you feel like buying me a cup of coffee as a thank you, donations are most welcome here).