Family School Bus Conversion: How Five People Live in 40 Feet
Updated: 17h
In 2021, Luka and David decided they were done waiting for someday. They didn't want to put off the life they wanted until retirement or until the timing felt perfect. They wanted to do it now, while their kids were still young enough to come along for the adventure.
By April 2022, they had found a 40-foot school bus in Phoenix and bought it for $18,000. What followed was two and a half years of building, learning as they went and welcoming two more children along the way. Eventually, their family school bus conversion became home for all five of them and their dog.
"The conversion was difficult, challenging, backbreaking at times, but we figured it out."
At a glance
Bus: 40-foot school bus, bought at AAA Bus in Phoenix, Arizona, April 2022
Family: two adults, three children, one dog
Build: two and a half years, almost entirely self-taught
Cost: $18,000 for the bus, about $60,000 to convert
Roof: raised 16 inches
Power: 3.6 kW of solar across 18 panels, a 1,200-amp-hour battery bank
Running cost: about $2,000 a month
They Sliced the Bus in Half to Raise the Roof
The first big decision shaped everything after it.
They wanted the living area to feel open, with room for everyone and plenty of light. So before anything else, they cut the bus horizontally, lifted the roof and added 16 inches.
"If you're thinking of raising the roof on your bus, it's a pretty demanding project. It was quite time consuming and challenging."
Family helped. They are also clear that you do not have to do it yourself, and that there are businesses around the country who lift buses for a living.
The payoff shows up in places you would not expect. The extra height is why the kitchen cabinets could be built as tall as they are.
The Living Room Built So Five People Can Sit Together
The seven-foot couch gives everyone a place to pile in together, but it was designed for travel too. Brackets for restraints mean everyone has a seat belt while the bus is moving. Lift the couch, and it becomes storage for a second fridge, blankets, backpacks and all the bulky things that need a home.
The bench beside the wood stove works just as hard. Car seat anchors are welded directly into the bus's steel frame, with more storage tucked underneath and shelves running up either side.
A Cubic Mini wood stove keeps the bus warm through the winter. They built the tile surround specifically to meet the manufacturer's heat-shielding instructions.
"It's really cozy. It's a great ambiance, and it does heat up the space pretty well."
And like most spaces in a bus this size, the living room doesn't have just one job. It's where they homeschool, where the kids spread out to play, where the dog has a spot to settle in, and, with the help of a projector, where the whole family can turn the bus into their own little movie theater.
A Kitchen Designed From Getting It Wrong Once
They had lived in a smaller camper first, which turned out to be the most useful part of the preparation. It told them exactly what they did not want.
Counter space was the thing they were short of, so this kitchen has a run of counter on one side plus flip up tables that extend it.
The stove is a 20-inch apartment-size unit, chosen after an RV stove burned everything they cooked. "This thing has been awesome." The range hood vents straight outside, which matters more in a bus than a house, because anything that steams or smokes fills the whole space otherwise.
The sink is set at an angle, which let them fit a larger basin and gave the cupboards below more depth. On demand hot water sits in the basement, along with 96-gallon fresh and gray tanks that last the five of them about two weeks. That is dishes, drinking, bathing children, all of it. There is an outdoor shower too. Water passes through filters, because they do not always know what is coming out of the tap where they park.
Two fridges, one here and one inside the couch, hold about two weeks of food between them.
The one regret is a dishwasher. They chose a combo washer and dryer instead, which for a family of five with small children and a dog was the right call, but Luka misses it.
A mini split handles heating and cooling when they are plugged in. "Everybody should have one of these."
The Bathroom With a Bath in It
The bathroom is a diagonal square, and the shape was deliberate. They did not want a hallway running through the bathroom and on into the children's room, so they built an L instead.
The sink is large on purpose, so all three children can brush their teeth at the same time.
The shower is fully tiled and the floor dips down into it, because the back half of the bus sits on a slightly raised floor. That drop is what lets them draw an actual bath for the two little ones. The shower floor is heated.
"We didn't want to feel like our shower was just like a camping shower. We wanted it to feel nice."
The toilet is a composting unit with coconut coir. The one modification worth stealing: the urine tank is plumbed down to the basement rather than sitting in the unit, so it goes about a week and a half between emptying instead of three or four days, and a light turns red when it is full.
"It's probably better than having another black tank under the bus."
Where Three Kids Sleep
The children's room is at the back, with bunks, storage under the lower one, bookshelves, cubbies for toys and floor space to play. A third bunk goes in when the youngest is ready.
Luka likes that you cannot see it from the front of the bus. "So that we can't see the mess that's back here that they're making."
The oldest is 10 and loves buses, which helps. The younger two have never known anything else.
"We keep things minimal," Luka says, "and I think that they're getting a really enriching childhood."
Because that back section sits higher, there are hatches in the floor. Christmas decorations, snow pants, winter clothes all live down there, present but out of sight. The parents' bed is a short queen, which they could use because neither of them is tall, and the length they saved became storage. Cubbies hold their clothes with more storage underneath, there is a closet for layers and bags, shelves for books, a small television, and enough floor to stand up and get dressed.
Nine Months to Learn the Solar
David taught himself both 12-volt DC and AC wiring and ran what he estimates at a thousand feet of cable through the bus. The solar design alone took about nine months of reading schematics and trial and error.
"Thank goodness Amazon has free returns, because half the things I ordered didn't work with other products."
What it adds up to: 18 panels on the roof making about 3.6 kW, deliberately split into three zones so shade falling across part of the roof does not cost them the whole array. Three server rack batteries at 400 amp hours each give a 1,200-amp-hour bank, which runs the bus for three or four days with no sun at all.
A 3,000-watt Victron MultiPlus inverter handles the mini split, the Instant Pot, the washer and dryer, the lights and the electronics at the same time. When they are plugged in, a 50-amp shore power cord comes through a hatch in the floor and a city water inlet fills the fresh tank.
That system was about $16,000 of the build.
"While this was a pretty robust system and did a number on my wallet, it's been nice to know that as long as there's sunlight coming down, we have unlimited power."
What a Family School Bus Conversion Costs
The bus was $18,000. Turning it into this was about $60,000.
They kept it near that figure by doing essentially all of the labor themselves, with help from family, having started with no building experience at all.
"Everything that was built in here, we learned to build."
The one job they hired out was spray foam insulation, because buying the equipment to put four inches top and bottom would have cost more than paying someone. It was still expensive, which they offer as the argument for learning the rest yourself.
They are also clear that nobody has to build to this standard. "If you just got the seats out, hang a couple hammocks, you have a skoolie, and you could start driving it like that weekend." They went further because they wanted something that still felt like a home on the days they were not going anywhere, and something that might stay in the family.
Living costs run around $2,000 a month for the five of them, and they are honest that it includes things they could cut. Organic groceries, travel. Parked off grid in the woods it would be a different number.
If you want the version of this story from people who have been at it longer, Cora and Jose have been in their bus seven years and are candid about what they would change. For a retired couple's take on the same idea, Louis and Traci Lee's bus is a good comparison. And if you are weighing a bus against a built tiny home, our cost guide puts five real budgets side by side.
What They Got Out of It
The reason they did any of it comes through most clearly from David.
"As a father of three, it feels really good to be able to wake up in the morning and spend the day with your kids. There's a lot of dads out there who have to work all day supporting their family. With this lifestyle choice, we still have to work. We do not have to work as hard. We don't have to work as long."
Luka puts it more simply. The whole point of changing their life was time with their children, and that is what it bought.
There is always something being upgraded. They redid the whole dashboard area in cedar a few days before filming, to match the rest of the bus.
"There's always things changing."
FAQ
How much does it cost to convert a school bus?
Luka and David paid $18,000 for a 40-foot bus in Phoenix and about $60,000 to convert it, which includes roughly $16,000 for the solar and off-grid system. They kept the conversion near that figure by doing almost all the labor themselves, with help from family. The only work they hired out was spray foam insulation.
Can a family of five live in a school bus?
They have done it for about a year and a half with three children and a dog. The layout gives the children their own room with bunks at the back, puts the bathroom on a diagonal so no hallway runs through it, and uses a seven-foot couch with seat belt brackets so everyone has a seat while the bus is moving.
What is a school bus roof raise?
Cutting the bus horizontally, lifting the roof and adding height in between. Luka and David raised theirs 16 inches with family help. They describe it as demanding and time consuming, and note that there are companies around the country who will do it for you.
How much solar do you need to live in a bus full time?
Their system is 3.6 kW across 18 roof panels, split into three zones so shade on one part of the roof does not take out the whole array, feeding a 1,200-amp-hour battery bank. That carries them three to four days with no sun at all. It took about nine months of study to design.
How much does it cost per month to live in a school bus?
They put it at about $2,000 a month for a family of five, and say that includes choices they could cut if they needed to, like buying organic groceries and traveling. Parking off grid would bring it down further.
Follow Luka and David: https://linktr.ee/highwayhuckleberry YouTube: @highwayhuckleberry
Instagram: @highwayhuckleberry
TikTok: @highwayhuckleberry
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