After the weld shop yesterday, our chassis gets all the weld spots painted, the chassis itself painted and the batteries installed.
Batteries Installed
The team at station one start installing some of the basic but key features.
Aqua Hot Installed
Fresh, Black And Grey Tanks
Slide Out Drawers In Basement
The black, grey and fresh tanks are placed and hooked up. Nice thing about this coach is that they use SeeLevel gauges. These give a much more accurate reading of your tanks levels than the older style gauges.
The team also installs all the basement flooring along with the carpeting. Once that is in place they install the basement slide out trays, if you ordered them. The smaller one that you see in the picture is for our outdoor refrigerator/freezer (optional). We chose to have this option installed as we full time in our coach and we like to have some extra freezer space.
We Found Our Floor!
The next station up is where they lay down our flooring. So before the floor went in, David took this opportunity to lay some extra cabling that he had brought.
David Ran Some Extra Cable
With station one complete, it was time to roll up to station two. This is where our flooring goes on.
Our Sub-Floor
Our Sub-Floor With All The Cabling And Plumbing Through It
It’s pretty interesting to watch how they move the flooring from the staging area to our chassis.
It is nice to see the guys take care in making sure all the cabling, wires, plumbing, etc that comes through the holes does not get pinched in any way. They really take their time in this.
Slide Guide Rails Go On
David Walking On The Floor For The First Time
The slide guide rails get on at this point. A guy goes around and sprays a sealant along the floor edging to fill in any cracks or crevasses.
David couldn’t help himself and climbed up there and walked on our floor for the first time.
Time to roll to station three where they continue working on the flooring among other things.
Heated Floor Goes Down
We opted for the heated floors. So this is where the heated flooring mesh gets laid and stapled. Boy are they quick at all of this.
OK…now for the really cool geeky tech.
Checking For Cold Spots On The Heated Floor
A Flir Thermal Imaging Detector
The guy that laid the heated floor mesh grabbed this gun and pointed it at the floor. David went to see what he was doing and he was checking to see if the floor was heating properly or if there were any cool spots. He used this Flir Thermal Imaging Detector. Any where the thermal detector see’s heat, it shows up on the screen. As you can see from the close up shot of this gun, it’s working pretty nicely.
Great…now David wants one of these thermal detectors. I don’t think Amazon would sell something like this. So I think I’m safe.
Once this is all determined that it’s working properly, it’s time to lay the tile floor.
No, they are not laying each tile here. That would certainly slow production down. They actually lay the tile at another part of the factory and bring it over to this station when it’s needed. So our tile floor was sitting there just waiting for us.
Laying Down The Underlayment For The Tile Flooring
Setting The Tile Floor In Place
Again, they took care in making sure nothing got pinched when the tile floor went in. It also took several people to move it exactly into place. You don’t want to flex the tile flooring to much.
Front Dash Get’s Installed And Wired
Our First Piece Of The Inside Of The Coach, The Toilet
While all of this is happening with the flooring, another set of people are working on all the wires for the front dash. They take the wiring that has already been laid before the flooring went in and once it’s all in place and hooked up, the dash itself get’s installed.
The next picture (above to the right) makes me chuckle. Does anyone else find it funny that the first indoor piece that get’s installed is the toilet?
Time to roll up to our final station for the day, station four.
Our coach is really starting to take shape at this section.
Back Bathroom Get’s Installed
Some Interior Walls And Such Get Installed
Our back bathroom vanity area went in. Our shower, washer and dryer, back walk in closet dresser, powder room vanity and walls all get installed here.
These are all built at other locations in the factory and brought over for installation. Some plumbing gets hooked up and wiring connected.
Things are really progressing fast. It’s amazing to us just how quickly things get done. I know I’ve said that before but it still get’s us.
This morning our chassis rolled in as bare bones and now we have a basement full of stuff, a floor that’s heated mind you and some interior walls and bathroom.
David Standing In Our Coach After Day One In The Main Building
Brenda Standing In Our Coach After Day One In The Main Building
We’re excited to see what day two will bring!
Ok, now for something special. David did a time lapse video of todays work! 8 hours of work compressed into 3 min and 40 seconds. I am sure you will like this and we hope to bring you the entire process in time lapse. Remember, you can play it in Hi-def and full screen with the controls at the bottom right of the video.
Here are the days photos. Be sure to click Show PicLens for best viewing.
In think it’s amazing that they are letting you get so involved and hands on with the coach. Is that signatures of the workers on your sweatshirts? I wonder if that bottom slide out drawer is something that I could add to kitchen cabinets? Is that something they sell separately? Where is all this located?
Hi…Good eyes! Yes, we made up t-shirts to get more involved. On the front it reads “Proud New Owner Tiffin Allegro Bus – 45LP” and on the back…”Proud as the people that built it. Build #96415 Thank you”. Then we thought it would be great to have them sign it. Having great fun with it and Tiffin of course seems to love it. (It’s the marketing side of me.) The slide out trays you have seen are LARGE. You would need a big kitchen for them…but you can go to Lowes and just buy slide out shelves to install. If by located you mean “where are we”, this is in Red Bay, AL.
Tiffin is a great company in that they do let their customers walk the factory floor, interact with the employees and yes, even let David run a couple extra cables.
Yes, those are signatures on our shirts. David came up with this great idea to have the employees that have a hand in building our coach sign our shirts. It’s a great memento piece at the end.
Tiffin is in Red Bay, Alabama. That’s in the NW quadrant of Alabama, a hop, skip and a jump from the Mississippi border. As a matter or fact the Tiffin paint shop is in Mississippi and it’s only in the next town over about a 10-15 minute drive.
I’m sure David wouldn’t want the “cheapie” $1000 version of the FLIR imaging detector, so here’s a link to their better model :-)
http://www.tequipment.net/FLIRE8.html
Never know when you might want to check out the heat distribution on your floor !!
By the way, the time lapse is really nicely done. What a great way to preserve the memories of watching your new home being built !!
Thanks Gary. David’s having fun doing it. The hard part is finding a place to place the camera that won’t get in their way of building. They have so many moving parts and people moving around.
I know you are very busy with this project but I am VERY interested in the extra lighting you brought and they installed. Can you tell me more about it–where it goes–it is rope lighting?–where did you buy it–how did you arrange for them to install it? Thanks.
Hi…Not sure what lighting you may be referring to I am sorry to say. If you mean the lighting under the coach, it is LED lighting. I paid for their package to be installed, which is only BLUE LED’s, however I brought my own that I will give the the installer to use. It is a TRI colored LED thus allowing me to select the color I would like. I get them from EEZ RV Products. http://eezrvproduct.com You will need to call them and ask them about the outdoor kit as it is not on their site. Hope this helps.
yes it does, thanks, we are going to have the ground light package installed in our build too and I like your idea of tri color. Mind if I “borrow” it? I’ll call eezy on Monday. Love following your build.
Enjoyed watching he video . . . I think it is great that they let you not only watch them build it but let you add things during the building process.
Yes, Tiffin is a wonderful company in that they do let you watch the process. As far as letting you change things, they really don’t like to say no but sometimes they may have to. They will let you do certain things as long as you don’t impede their progress or mess up their system. If you want to add anything, it has to go through sales and an engineer may need to approve it first.
Incredible! I am really enjoying following the build. Thanks for sharing. I cant believe how everything falls into place so quickly! Thanks again, Keith
Very interesting and AMAZING. Great that you can watch it grow. Miss you guys.
Mom and I watch it. It is very interesting. We love you both and we miss you also.
Maybe I missed it but what is the time frame from start to finish for the whole Bus?
If by finish you mean ready for delivery, about 4 weeks from the time it starts. The longest part is paint which can be 2 weeks. Example…Ours shows that it will be ready to go to the dealer on the 26th of Feb if all goes well. But things do come up that may require more time. The interesting part is that it takes only 4 days inside the main build plant. Ours is showing it should go into the paint queue on Thursday the 6th.
Thanks that’s awesome! Ok I see that now,,,, reading back a bit, Thanks!
Ahhhhhing here, just thinking about those heated floors! They will be a great addition to your new home and I am sure the kitties will love it too! Love the time lapse thingy….that’s my Bro. Always finding new things to try and to learn!
It certainly looks like you guys made the perfect decision on where to get your new home made! After the horrible disappointment with Winnebago, I am so happy that you discovered Tiffin, a company that shows such obvious pride in workmanship! Everything happens for a reason!
Love and hugs….