The New Grooming Bus

monsinour

monsinour

Active Member
Heres the thing. We are trying to make this a completely detached device over night. If we are going to plug something in, we would plug in heaters and not use heat tape over pipes. If the damn propane furnace was working, this wouldnt be a flippin problem. BTW, anyone else know that there is a Flippin GA? I would like to shake the hand of the man who named that town.
I hate it when things go wrong too. This has been a real issue with me for over a week now. If it wasnt my best friend, I would have strangled him. As it is, he is going to send us his propane heater that he doesnt need for the current season. Atlanta doesnt get cold enough any more. And yea, since I was able to put just over 8 gallons into the generator tank, it was just out of gas.
This weekend, when no one is working, we will probably have someone look at the propane for the furnace and water heater. It will cost us some, but I want it fixed correctly so that we can sell it easier.
 
mylady

mylady

Member
I had actually mentioned the heat tape to our friend who built it but he was confident the insullation would be enough, He hasn't lived in the biter cold climate in a long time and I think he forgot how cold it gets. We also cannot plug it in since it won't fit in the driveway and we have alternate side of the street parking. Plus it's probably some code violation to have a cord running over the sidewalk anyway.
 
darthtang aw

darthtang aw

Active Member

I had actually mentioned the heat tape to our friend who built it but he was confident the insullation would be enough, He hasn't lived in the biter cold climate in a long time and I think he forgot how cold it gets. We also cannot plug it in since it won't fit in the driveway and we have alternate side of the street parking. Plus it's probably some code violation to have a cord running over the sidewalk anyway.
You could always get an ac/dc converter an d run it off the truck battery...heat tape doesn't require much draw. I can't see it draining the battery.
 
monsinour

monsinour

Active Member
I have finished a ton of work on this thing getting it ready for service. It has done a few grooming jobs and is currently out doing 4 dogs. I have
Installed 6 linkable T5 lights
Installed double light over drying area (yes, its blindingly bright in there now)
Installed rear center break light (didnt know if this was done wrong the tranny wont shift into gear)
Installed eye bolts over tub and made holes in the splash guard for them (forgot the wood behind the acrylic so I cracked it on one side.)
Installed hooks on door for hanging stuff
Installed rear speakers for tuneage in the back
Transfered all items from old van to new
Items left to do
Replace stripped out screws in trim work
Install rubber mat on steps and dry/work area
Figure out a way to get water into tank when the inlet is frozen
take to RV place to get the furnace and water heater to work (only propane part of water heater. electric side works great)
Install more hooks to hang stuff up
somehow make the generator quiter
install rubber strip on bottom of door
Sell for profit
This van is becoming more and more 'fun' to work on. I think things are starting to turn around and become good with it.
 
monsinour

monsinour

Active Member
Well, there is good news and bad news.
Good news - The water heater is now fully functional. The furnace is now fully functional. Apparently there was a wiring issue with the furnace (I had figured this) and some wires were backward on the water heater. We had to take it to an RV place to get the work done. They had it all day and charged us $500 to get it working. The mechanics who worked on it said that the quality of construction was outstanding. They feel that this thing will never fall apart as long as the frame doesnt rust on the truck. They were thouroghly impressed with all of the metal pieces being cut by a laser and the precision of how everything went together for being a "home build" type of job.
Bad news - I have to move the furnace closer to the outer wall because the exhaust will come into the van causing a CO2 problem. It does not appear to be that difficult to move as it will be 6 screws to remove and put back in. I am nervous about the copper propane line. I dont want to move it and then cause a leak in the propane lines.
Really bad news - Apparently a regulator is needed and because we didnt have one, this is why the propane never worked to the water heater or furnace. Its a good thing too as we could have blown up the bus. I called my friend and asked him "I thought you liked me, I thought you and I were friends." He said that we were and why. "the regulator on the propane lines wasnt there and we could have blown everything to kingdom come." His reply, "well, I have life insurance. Good thing we didnt get it to work then huh?" We both had a good laugh over it and now I have a plan for what to do this saturday.
Just news - Because I have to move the furnace, I have to cut a larger hole in the furnace cover plate. It is made of 1/8" aluminum so I shouldnt have too much of a problem cutting it. I am thinking about using a drill and making lots of holes and finishing off with a dremmel. I know a hole saw will work, but I want to do all this work for as little as possible and dont want to purchase tools that I will only use once.
So now everything is working, she has been using the bus on a regular basis. I think it has grown on her a little. My wife doesnt like change all that much and I thought that given enough time, she would grow to like this vehicle. Its a shame we have to sell it. If it got better milage or had a suped up inverter in it, we would find a way to keep it. Espically with the inverter. The new vehicle will have an inverter system in it. The sad part is that these inverters are $1,500 and that doesnt count the 20 marine batteries you need to go with it. Also, there are plenty of RV places that say it cannot be done and wont help us. But we are aware of about 1,000 units on the road that have this working flawlessly. I have some research to do on the inverter system.
 
monsinour

monsinour

Active Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by Al&Burke http:///forum/thread/383945/the-new-grooming-bus/100#post_3369172
Monsi, you can cut aluminum plate with a jigsaw using a metal blade (very fine blade)
Thats under the assumption that I have a jig saw. I used to and I still have metal blades. But that multi tool doesnt have a charged battery and the cats destroyed the charger's power wire. I tried splicing it 4 times and on the 5th time, I gave up and let the cats win.
 
monsinour

monsinour

Active Member
Yea, I would be sponging off of everyone's tools and skills and have little to nothing to offer back in return.
 
2quills

2quills

Well-Known Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by Monsinour http:///forum/thread/383945/the-new-grooming-bus/100#post_3369184
Yea, I would be sponging off of everyone's tools and skills and have little to nothing to offer back in return.
Well I think Shawns been having issues with his laptop. Just talked to him tonight to make sure he was still alive. Man, we'd have to start our own fish store where we could build some nice custom set ups. We'd have tools and fish and corals coming out of our ears.
 
monsinour

monsinour

Active Member
I dont have Acrylic's number but I would be happy to help as best I can over the phone.
From what I hear, LFS dont make too much off of the livestock. The most profit is in the other stuff, basically the stuff that most of us order online and get plenty of it for free shipping or whatnot. I have looked into a LFS, sorta, and decided against it. Way too much overhead and would take about a month before you could get much of any livestock into the tanks. And to be competitive, you would have to do some kind of online selling and offer discounts for that.
My wife said to combine her grooming and doggy day care with the fish store and we would do fine. Problem with that is her dogs would be supporting the fish.
 
2quills

2quills

Well-Known Member
Agreed, the money doesn't really seem to be there judging by the local businesses around here. We have 3 and 2 of them are struggling bad. One (my favorite one) is relatively new and caters only to reefers with a marginal selection on saltwater fish. They are also selling online though where as the others aren't and have now become the best place in town to go. Unfortunately none of them really have a very good selection on equipment but they'd be happy to order it for you lol. It's like, thanks but I can do that, myself.
I'll have to send Shawn a text to get ahold of you. I know he's been asking for a while now on how to figure out if he can post pics from his iphone on this site. He says guys do it with theirs over on RC but not sure how and if it can be done on this site. I told him that I was no help in that area lol.
 
gemmy

gemmy

Active Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2Quills http:///forum/thread/383945/the-new-grooming-bus/100#post_3369191
I'll have to send Shawn a text to get ahold of you. I know he's been asking for a while now on how to figure out if he can post pics from his iphone on this site. He says guys do it with theirs over on RC but not sure how and if it can be done on this site. I told him that I was no help in that area lol.
I have an Iphone and have tried numerous times to post pics from my phone to the site, but have not been able to. RC supports tapatalk, which allows you to be able to post pics.
 
monsinour

monsinour

Active Member
its cool. I do know that SWF.com asked hudler about tapatalk and from the response, there is no way tapatalk is making its way here.
One could create a photobucket account, go from phone to bucket, then bucket to boards. Its more steps, but it will work.
So tomorrow I got little work on the bus, but this weekend its a ton of work. Everyone look to centraleastern NY for the big propane explosion. That will be me making a mess of the bus.
 
meowzer

meowzer

Moderator
Quote:
Originally Posted by Monsinour http:///forum/thread/383945/the-new-grooming-bus/100#post_3369188
I dont have Acrylic's number but I would be happy to help as best I can over the phone.
From what I hear, LFS dont make too much off of the livestock. The most profit is in the other stuff, basically the stuff that most of us order online and get plenty of it for free shipping or whatnot. I have looked into a LFS, sorta, and decided against it. Way too much overhead and would take about a month before you could get much of any livestock into the tanks. And to be competitive, you would have to do some kind of online selling and offer discounts for that.
My wife said to combine her grooming and doggy day care with the fish store and we would do fine. Problem with that is her dogs would be supporting the fish.
My notsolfs also grooms dogs....he said that is his bread and butter.....he does a lot of online fish sales now too.....
 
mylady

mylady

Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by Monsinour http:///forum/thread/383945/the-new-grooming-bus/100#post_3369188
From what I hear, LFS dont make too much off of the livestock. The most profit is in the other stuff, basically the stuff that most of us order online and get plenty of it for free shipping or whatnot. I have looked into a LFS, sorta, and decided against it. Way too much overhead and would take about a month before you could get much of any livestock into the tanks. And to be competitive, you would have to do some kind of online selling and offer discounts for that.
My wife said to combine her grooming and doggy day care with the fish store and we would do fine. Problem with that is her dogs would be supporting the fish.
The livestock creates foot traffic though to bring people into the store and hopefully get them to buy other things with higher profit margins. Dog food/cat food does not have a high mark up, but people who have dogs and cats need to feed them, so that's why pet stores typically put the pet food all the way in the back. It makes you walk past everything else in hopes something catches your eye for an impulse buy.
I know we could do it, but the initial investment is what is the killer. Not only in the space and renovations, but the retail and the equipment needed to set up salt water tanks. There was a pet store for sale about an hour away that I considered looking at but then did some research and found it had a horrific reputation and really didn't want to take that on along with the $60K asking price. It already had salt water fish and a space for grooming, but it would have been quite a commute. That and it sounded like the fish and other pets were not well cared for so who knows how much would have had to have been replaced or started over.
 
darthtang aw

darthtang aw

Active Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by MyLady http:///forum/thread/383945/the-new-grooming-bus/100#post_3369291
The livestock creates foot traffic though to bring people into the store and hopefully get them to buy other things with higher profit margins. Dog food/cat food does not have a high mark up, but people who have dogs and cats need to feed them, so that's why pet stores typically put the pet food all the way in the back. It makes you walk past everything else in hopes something catches your eye for an impulse buy.
I know we could do it, but the initial investment is what is the killer. Not only in the space and renovations, but the retail and the equipment needed to set up salt water tanks. There was a pet store for sale about an hour away that I considered looking at but then did some research and found it had a horrific reputation and really didn't want to take that on along with the $60K asking price. It already had salt water fish and a space for grooming, but it would have been quite a commute. That and it sounded like the fish and other pets were not well cared for so who knows how much would have had to have been replaced or started over.
I have a good friend that owns two LFS here. His highest overhead bill is his electric.It is higher than his lease and employees put together. Fish mark up is closer to 125% but supplies is around 25%-40%...
Dog/cat food mark up is between 25-40%
Treats about 60%
everything else, depends on the local mark up.
 
S

smartorl

Guest
My friend who used to own Fish Wish had a 100% markup on fish, sometimes more if the supplier had a special on it. She would have a weekly "sale" fish that would be discounted to about 75%.
I think the recession changed the way many LFS's do business. I am no longer seeing the stores stocking alot of dry goods like they used to.
While internet shopping is convenient, for me it doesn't replace the going into the store and seeing things for myself. It's nice to see the fish eat and to see the size. I can see several fish and have the opportunity to take the smaller one or the one with brighter coloration.
 
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