How To Choose Your School Bus Home. Should You Build Your Skoolie?

School busses come in many different forms. There are long ones, short ones, flat nose, stubby nose and dog nose. There are handicap busses with taller ceilings that can get up to 6’4. There are some that sit right over 5 and a half feet. The options are limitless. Believe it or not you can even do a roof raise and have a ceiling that is over 10 feet tall! You may think to yourself “.I don’t know how to build a school bus home.” I will l just let you know. There are options. Where there’s a will there’s a way!

BUILD YOUR OWN SKOOLIE

The Skoolie movement only became popular a few years ago but there are many YouTube videos with great resources out there. You will have to do some searching and planning. You will need saws, grinders, drills, screws staple guns and much more. You can buy these things and still have a nice bus built for $10,000 or less. I know this to be true from experience.

The kitchen in our Skoolie The Ark. (Almost finished)

GET A CONTRACTOR

There are people out there that build Skoolies for a living. They do beautiful work that can be worth it for people that don’t have the time or ability to build their own Skoolie. You can get your bus custom built with your own layout. If you go this route you are going to come out of pocket alot more. The Skoolies can range from $30,000 to $80,000 depending on the contractor and the cost of materials.

BUYING A USED ALREADY CONVERTED SKOOLIE

If you dont have the most money to spend and also don’t have the time to build your own Schoolie this is a great option for you. These already done Skoolies can cost anywhere from $60,000 to as little as $10,000. People build them and end up moving on to a different home or no longer want to travel and sell their already built Skoolies.

PARTIALLY BUILT SKOOLIES

There are many unfinished Skoolies for sale that are cheaper in price. Some have roof raises, some are almost done and some have just been gutted out. These are great to purchase because the grunt of a Skoolie build is removing the seats. If that’s done already you should consider yourself lucky.

RESOURCES

The best resource for looking into getting a Skoolie at any stage would be Facebook groups. People are always sharing their progress and asking questions at all stages. Get plugged into a few Facebook groups and start your journey to Skoolie living today!