March 7, 2024 • 20 mins
Ryan Greene shares the story behind the creation of Kaniksu and how his desire for better internet service led him to start the company. He explains the process of installing wireless antennas and fiber optic connections, highlighting the challenges and opportunities he encountered along the way. Ryan also discusses the unique choice of using an ambulance as a work truck for his business and the benefits it provides.
From climate control to ample storage space, the ambulance has proven to be a valuable asset for Kaniksu. Ryan shares his experiences with the vehicle, including its performance in snowy conditions and the modifications he made to optimize its functionality. This episode offers valuable insights into the world of internet service provision and the creative solutions entrepreneurs like Ryan Greene employ to meet the needs of their communities.
About the Guest:
Ryan Greene is the founder of Kaniksu, a local internet service provider based in north Idaho. He started the company with the goal of providing better internet service to his community. Ryan began his journey by installing wireless internet antennas on houses and connecting them to nearby towers. As the company grew, Kaniksu expanded its services to include fiber optic installations as well.
Key Takeaways:
- Ryan Greene founded Kaniksu with the goal of providing better internet service to his community after struggling to find reliable options himself.
- The decision to use an ambulance as a work truck for Kaniksu was driven by the need for climate control for delicate splicing.
- The numerous storage compartments inside and outside that originally housed medical equipment provide ample space for internet equipment.
- The ambulance's built-in power inverter allows Kaniksu to run various tools and equipment, making it a versatile and efficient work vehicle.
Additional Resources:
- Discover Kaniksu internet https://www.kaniksu.com
- Explore the wild world of government surplus at Municibid
- Learn more about Government Surplus Vehicles: https://blog.municibid.com/the-government-surplus-vehicle-guide/
- How to build your ambulance work truck: https://blog.municibid.com/how-to-build-your-ambulance-work-truck/
- Why an ambulance makes a great RV: https://blog.municibid.com/why-an-ambulance-makes-a-great-rv/
- View episode transcript: https://blog.municibid.com/ambulance-to-work-truck-conversion-with-ryan-greene/
Got feedback or want to be a guest? Email us at marketing@municibid.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sophie (00:00):
Hi Ryan.
Ryan (00:00):
How's it going
Sophie (00:01):
It's going great.
How are you?
This sunny day.
Ryan (00:04):
Good.
It's nice spring finally.
Sophie (00:08):
it It's tell me, Ryan, about your business Kaniksu and
what you do.
Ryan (00:12):
Yeah, happy to.
So, Kaniksu is a local internetservice provider.
We're based in northern Idaho.
We started out as what's calleda fixed base wireless operator,
which means that we install alittle dish or antenna on the
side of your house, and thenthat dish or antenna points to a
tower that we have.
Somewhere a few miles away, andthen we can provide, you know,
internet service that way.
(00:32):
But as we started to grow, we,we started to realize that there
was a great opportunity to domore than just wireless
internet.
So we started doing fiber aswell.
Fiber, the way we do it is webury it all underground and but
every connection point have gothrough and connect everything.
And then we also use that weconnect the to the house.
We've got all differentconnection points that are a
little bit tedious to to, to getup and running, but anyway, so
(00:55):
we've been doing that now forabout about five years.
And we, we really enjoyed it,really the community.
Sophie (01:01):
And what got you started to create Kaniksu
Ryan (01:07):
Kaniksu was a very selfish reason to get started.
I wanted better internet formyself I couldn't find better
internet myself and I read anarticle randomly, somebody me,
not related starting aninternet, but about a, a group
in western washington orcasIsland or San Juan Islands, me,
who had done something verysimilar, but they'd done it as a
(01:27):
co-op just to the neighbors getwell, that seems like it could
work.
So I kind of looked into it andto make a long story kind of
short.
All the pieces kind of fell intoplace to kind of make this work.
And I realized though, if I'mgonna go to all this trouble,
kind of ought to be a businesscause it's gonna a lot of, my
time so I looked at how would I,how I business and started
(01:48):
talking to the community andinterest in the community to get
better internet.
And, and off, off we went.
My, my crazy little story I liketo tell is I put up some yard
yard signs, just kind of to seehow interested people were.
It took me about 30 minutes toget these yard signs set the the
community and they had it.
So if you go to a website, youcould sign up and say, I'm
interested.
I put the signs out and I goback to my computer and I look,
(02:09):
and there was already two peoplethat had signed up in the 30
minutes I was away.
So clearly there was someinterest, so,
Sophie (02:16):
oh yeah.
And for us, being in a smalltown, that's a lot interest
already in 30 minutes.
Ryan (02:22):
And and over the course of about a week, and week and a
half, I lose track of time Wehad about 90 to a hundred
people.
So we were, we were prettyenthused and excited about that.
Sophie (02:31):
Brilliant.
Yeah.
And we Kaniksu our house and welove it.
Ryan (02:36):
Great.
Sophie (02:37):
Thank you much for creating this business.
Ryan (02:40):
You're welcome
Sophie (02:41):
Because absolutely right.
a lot better than anything elseavailable.
So part of being an internetcompany, there.
You like installing, digging,optic and putting the satellite,
you know, up at people's homes.
So you need a work truck dothat.
(03:02):
Can you tell us about what yourneeds were you were looking to
get a work truck?
Ryan (03:08):
Yeah, so we knew we wanted to get into fiber optic
business, and we knew, you know,when we're doing just the, the
antenna installs, we can do withjust regular pickup.
a util suv utility vehicle begreat, but when we're doing
suddenly that changes a ofdifferent pieces and parts to,
(03:28):
we of different tools and,biggest thing is we need to it
climate controlled because the.
The, the temperature that you'redoing this work at will really
make a difference in terms ofhow it splices and also how how
easy the material to work fiberstrands, themselves like you
work with.
And so we we knew we wanted tosomething that work.
(03:48):
A lot people use trailers.
They'll use vans, but I'd heardpeople about using old ambulance
thought, well, that, that mightbe kind of cool way to do it.
But I never really gave it anyserious thought.
So we were we were looking atdifferent sites for, or
different places for equipment.
And quite frankly, I was lookingmore at a bucket truck that we
could use if we be putting wirewire on poles, et cetera.
(04:12):
And we found at, at the sameauction, we bought the, the
bucket truck, we found a anambulance.
And we just kind of thought,well, we'll bid on it and see
what happens.
We had our, our limit and wewanted to see where it went and
at ended up winners of the, ofthe ambulance.
And it was really interestingwhen we went and picked it up
I'd never driven a emergencyvehicle.
(04:33):
And they, they had a policepresence there right outside the
facility, and like am I supposedto be doing anything with this?
so I stopped and I asked him, Isaid, should I be registering
this?
Do I need to do somethingdifferent with the registration
to make sure that I'm legalhere?
And he is like, Nope, have agood day.
So I drove home and, you know,everything basically worked in
there.
We had the, the light bar, thesirens, all that stuff was still
(04:56):
functional in the ambulance whenwe bought it.
But of course it wasn't stuffthat we necessarily needed, but
it was fun, if you will, for ashort period of time to kind of
play with it.
So
Sophie (05:05):
That's brilliant.
Did you need a commercialdriver's license drive the
ambulance?
Ryan (05:10):
not this one.
It's small enough that we couldregister it as just a, a well
you could register it as aprivate vehicle, but since it's
a business vehicle, we didregister it as a commercial
vehicle in Idaho.
And the really, the biggestdesignation that that gave us is
we could tow I wanna say was upto up to 26,000, have a total
val have a total weight withtowing of 26,000 pounds.
(05:31):
We're certainly not gonna evertow that much with it, but we
kinda like the idea of havingthat flexibility that we could
tow something behind it and nothave to really worry about if we
were reaching a certainthreshold that the state have a
problem.
Sophie (05:42):
So what kind of ambulance you have?
Ryan (05:45):
So what I I a, 1999 Ford F four 50.
So it's truck version of fordtruck, basically super Duty they
do make an ambulance.
I've seen one floating aroundThat's a van.
Version, but the truck issomeone has all the towing
capability with it.
I it's just a base like or Xlpso real inside, but that's all
(06:08):
they they wanted anyway, we'rebox on the back anyway,
Sophie (06:12):
You tell me about what the ambulance, like the mileage
and the hours and what you werelooking at considering
Ryan (06:19):
Yeah, so this is, when we bought it had about 98,000 miles
on it.
I don't remember the hours, butknew relatively high.
From our perspective, we werewith the higher hours because we
knew most the time that vehiclegonna be sitting there idle
without a whole lot of, load onthe ambulances, you know, hurry
(06:40):
get to scene, maybe put a mileor two or five miles on vehicle
to get to to scene.
may spend an hour or two idlingthey're.
While they're taking whateverneeds be done with medical
situation.
That perspective, it's beenpretty good.
Have had a few repairs thatwe've needed to do.
But they were all things we werewell within our risk threshold
(07:01):
for, for being a, an auctionpurchase.
As example, we had do glow plugreplacement.
we soon going to have to do sometransmission but we got such
great deal at on it compared towhat we would have paid for a,
comparable vehicle, whether wasan ambulance something else that
we, we felt like those risks andthose costs were, were worth it
(07:24):
to us
Sophie (07:25):
You talked about the weight limit with the vehicle
and being able to tow.
How much equipment are youstoring inside of the vehicle?
Was it important that you'd beable to store a lot of weight
inside the vehicle as well astowing.
Ryan (07:39):
Weight?
Not so much.
Most of what we're, we'restoring in there is fairly
light, it's volume that we're,we're more than anything,
connectors extra cable, sometools what we call enclosures,
which is a waterproof boxbasically that goes in our
little underground vault.
That's that way keeping all thewater out of the connectors that
we've installed.
It, it's things like that.
(08:01):
We have some tools in there suchas shovels and.
Signs and ladders, but for themost part, I wouldn't, it's,
it's not a whole lot of weight.
Which lends itself well if we dowant to tow because we've got
more weight available fortowing.
But no, we, we really haven'thad to do a whole lot with, with
heavy, heavy equipment in the,in the ambulance itself when we
did our first project with theambulance, we were still trying
(08:22):
to figure things out and we havecalled a reel trailer.
We put the fiber on of oftrailer.
And then you can spool Weactually for a while were
pulling that reel trailer withthe ambulance and I have some
pictures.
It was a, a really funny sightto see an ambulance with that
big reel trailer behind so
Sophie (08:40):
That's so cool.
Ryan (08:41):
Yeah.
Sophie (08:42):
You put hitch to use already.
You mentioned like climatecontrol was really important.
So the ambulance you won AC andheating like worked worked
Ryan (08:54):
For the most part.
I mean, any vehicle that age andcondition, there was gonna be
some things that went wrong withit, and we knew that going into
it.
The AC technically worked, butit wasn't really working that
well.
We just basically recharged the,the refrigerant and I think had
to do one thing.
But yeah, it, it works reallywell now.
It's especially nice in thesummer when it's so hot out.
(09:15):
I, I feel a little guilty attimes if I'm in there working
while my employee's outsidebecause I can sit in the nice
air conditioning while he's outthere pulling cable or doing
whatever outside.
Sophie (09:23):
From when you picked up the ambulance to, when you put
it into like service what wasyour process for getting it
ready to put to work?
Ryan (09:33):
I wish I could say I had a really scientific process or a
really well thought out process.
But it was really, I, I guessthe best way to say this is we
bought this as we were startingour very first fiber.
project.
And so we were kind of wingingeverything as we went.
We, we knew we wanted to use theambulance, I guess, before we
(09:53):
even bought it.
The very first thing we did iswe kind of sat in and looked at
it and said, okay, yeah, thisseems like this would be
comfortable enough.
It has enough space in it thatwe could use the the bench to
work on.
on.
But then the next thing we didafter that is look at, okay,
what.
Needed to be repaired to make itusable immediately.
As an example, we had to replaceall four Yes, four batteries in
(10:14):
the ambulance.
We had to replace the alternatoralternators, excuse me.
then we up need to put it.
And, and then we also wanted tomake sure it was legal.
We wanted to take advantage ofthe, the lights that it had, not
the light bar, but the otherlights around it.
But the problem was, is to belegal.
We couldn't be flashing redlights.
And so we had to go and figureout who made the light lens
(10:38):
covers buy some that were amberinstead, and replace all of them
with Amber.
And then we also went throughand disabled a few things that
we were concerned aboutpotentially being a problem such
as the siren.
It's fun to play with, yes, butbut I didn't want that.
Somebody bumping that in themiddle of the street, and it
suddenly going off and eitherscaring people or people
(10:58):
complaining we using themincorrectly.
So, just said to be safe, wewere gonna dis, disconnect these
things.
Beyond that, there were a coupleother real minor things that we
wanted to look is you know, whattools did we wanna put in there?
But for the most part it wasabout let's go out there and try
this.
We, we we did our very firstenclosure vault and we realized
(11:19):
we don't have a really good wayto secure the cable so it's not
flapping all around.
And so we We went out and webought ice so we could put, you
know, mount that mounted that inthere.
But it was just a lot of trialand error.
Sophie (11:30):
How long was it from when you picked it up to when it
went out on its first job?
Ryan (11:34):
About four months.
Most of that was not because ofa lot of prep work for the
ambulance, it was more of wewere just, like I said, getting
started.
A lot of the undergrounddigging.
It happened during those fourmonths and by the time we were
ready to start using it, a lotof the underground.
So I wanna say we probablystart, u started using it.
We bought it in July and we wereprobably using it consistently
(11:58):
by late October and intoNovember.
Sophie (12:02):
and you mentioned replacing four batteries.
I'm imagining they were prettybig.
Mm-hmm.
Like hefty batteries.
So tell me more about like whatthe power situation is like and
how you're using it.
For tools.
Ryan (12:16):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's one of the biggestreasons that we wanted to buy
the ambulance when we saw it.
It has I think it's, it's threedifferent locations in the
ambulance where we can plug inAC power, so there's an inverter
in there and it can run i, i, Iwanna say it's running 2000,
either 1500 or 2000 watts ofpower.
Not to get too technical or geekout here, but that's essentially
(12:37):
essentially a home is gonna begonna be.
gonna be 1500 or 2000 watts.
And so we felt like we could runvirtually we would need to in
there.
Whereas, you know, most of thetime when you take an in and
plug it into your, your cartruck, you're gonna be lucky
able.
be able to power a laptop off ofit or a computer off of it.
And so the power, and so we, youknow, we have equipment we're
trying to charge.
We have few times, sometimes weusing in some cases we're, we're
(13:00):
we're drilling.
and we, you know, it's, it's avariety of different tools we
may be using.
And having the versatility ofthe, the power really nice.
nice.
So
Sophie (13:11):
have you ever, like, through the process of working
on a job run out of power in theambulance, like drain the
Ryan (13:17):
No, we, we do keep the ambulance running whenever
we're, we're working in there.
Just so we don't have to worryabout that.
You could make an argument thatyou don't have to do that.
It's got what's called anisolator in between the.
The two sets of batteries.
So in theory, I could run the,the house or the cabin batteries
completely dead, but still startthe vehicle up afterwards.
But I just, I've always worriedthat we're be burning them up
(13:40):
too quickly and and so justseems more prudent just to keep
it running all the time.
And for for the most part that'sbeen fine.
The trickiest thing that we'verun into is there's an occasion
where we've had to do somethinglate at night, emergency repair,
whatever.
And we just try to be aware ofthe fact that we have neighbors
who may be to sleep.
And and we've even had one caseneighbor complain about the
(14:01):
diesel.
But overall's it's not reallybeen a problem.
Sophie (14:05):
We're in in north Idaho.
We get snow.
How has it been?
Through the winter driving
Ryan (14:10):
That's that's gonna be the one area that I wish it was
different.
It is just a two-wheel drive.
It is a dually.
Once we put new tires on ithandled a lot better in the
snow, surprisingly well in thesnow.
However, we, we do keep chainsin there and with the chains on,
it's fine.
It's just, a pain sometimes toput the chains on.
And especially if you're, ifyou're transitioning a lot
(14:32):
between pavement and, and, snowor ice.
But it does make us a little bitnervous.
One of the roads as an example,I'm sure you're quite familiar
with, is very steep.
And the hill generally we canget up, but we're always a
little nervous about going backdown just because of sliding.
And so it does cause us to be alittle bit more cautious about
(14:52):
how we're using the winter.
winter For the most part, we'renot doing a lot of construction
in the winter, so it's not beena big deal.
It's really been more about ifwe have to do any maintenance or
repairs.
Sophie (15:04):
Yeah.
I was curious because I've seenyou up on the side when we still
have snow and I'm like, wow, weseem pretty good at that
ambulance up
Ryan (15:11):
Yeah, yeah.
We, we generally also wait on aday where it's clear, we know
gonna snow.
And we wait till the county hassanded the road so that have
some traction.
And like I said, overall it'sdone really especially since
we've new on.
With it being as heavy as it is,does give us bit traction.
But I would be lying if I saidwe never got it stuck.
(15:34):
So
Sophie (15:35):
Yeah.
with an ambulance ambulance isquite a large vehicle.
You've got, you know, moreweight in the back.
How has it been when you havegotten stuck to get it?
out of there?
Ryan (15:46):
We've only got it stuck once.
Let, let me be very clear.
It's not a, it's not a a, aserial or habitual thing for us.
But it really wasn't that bad.
We just used the little, theextra ooph of our one ton truck
to help pull it, you know,between what little traction we
could get from the ambulanceand, and then the, the one ton
pickup truck, it really wasn'tthat get out.
get out.
But we've also, like I tried tobe pretty, pretty cautious about
(16:08):
where we take it overall.
Yeah, it, it's always beensurprising to me because the
ambulance served most life inBurlington, Vermont, and I
would've would've assumed a likeVermont would likely single
vehicle.
They they must do a job inVermont.
of, of plowing and clear.
clear.
Sophie (16:26):
I'm gonna guess it was probably also driven on asphalt
roads, not the dirt roads thatwe've got here.
It's gonna be guest
Ryan (16:35):
I'm sure so, yeah
Sophie (16:38):
yeah does your ambulance have a sink or water?
Ryan (16:41):
No.
And I'm kind grateful about thatone.
One thing I don't, we don'treally necessarily need, it
would be nice times to wash ourhands, but I would rather not
have to deal with potentialmaintenance issues come from the
extra features.
So I'm, I'm, so, no, we don't,we that in there that in there.
Sophie (16:57):
What is one of the features that you love the most
about the ambulance as a worktruck?
Ryan (17:02):
I think one of the biggest things that's been really nice
for us is all the lights, and Idon't mean the flashing lights,
but it's got a bunch of whatthey call scene lights.
And so it's just basically youcan really illuminate,
especially at dark the areaaround where you're working.
And so what we end up doing isyou know, especially fall or
spring when it's not quite.
Light late enough in the day.
(17:23):
We, we can turn on those scenelights and we can see around us,
open up our, our vaults and pullout the equipment.
We can see how much water we'vegot in there that we're gonna be
sticking our hand in, whateverit may be.
And you know, it really gives usa good work area that we can, we
can use.
Those few times we've hademergency repairs as well.
You know, we're fixing itwhether it's day or night.
And so having that, That area tobe safer and just be able to see
(17:47):
what we're doing has been reallyamazing to have.
Sophie (17:50):
And these lights were they, Like the same ones that
were installed when you pickedup the ambulance, or did you
have to modify the, the lightsat all?
Ryan (18:00):
No, they were the same lights that were there when we
installed it or when we pickedit up.
It's it's, it's, yeah.
Anyway, the same ones that thereand they, they're just
surprisingly bright So
Sophie (18:10):
Fantastic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you have any like tips oradvice to people that are
looking purchasing an ambulanceas a work truck for what they
should consider while they'relooking at ambulances.
Ryan (18:22):
Biggest thing is you can do a walkthrough of it.
Look for signs rest.
Ours.
I believe mostly all aluminumembodied the the, box itself is
but you really see lot ofunderneath looking at the the
condition of, of vehicle, youknow, is, is it water
environment or salt environmentduring the winter?
(18:43):
You know, just for those typesof things.
the ambulance, we didn't know itthe time, but found the service
records in there and the, thethe fire that had, had
impeccable records.
And kind of made me realize wedid a rough tallying.
I, I wish I could remember rightwhat that was, of the dollar
amount that they on maintenancefor that vehicle over the life
(19:06):
that it.
And I, I take little I, I wannasay around hundred$120,000 in
maintenance that they spent onthat vehicle.
Now that Is, was reassuring andI guess maybe the best word I
come up that we weren't going tonecessarily find lot of major
issues.
Typically when you find an thathas maintained a vehicle that
(19:27):
they're catching a lot of thingsbefore they, they've been
neglected to the point wherethey need a lot of
Sophie (19:32):
Wonderful.
Thank you so much, Ryan.
Ryan (19:34):
You're welcome.
Sophie (19:35):
to sharing.
your story it's been really coolto hear
Ryan (19:40):
You're welcome
Hi Ryan.
Ryan (00:00):
How's it going
Sophie (00:01):
It's going great.
How are you?
This sunny day.
Ryan (00:04):
Good.
It's nice spring finally.
Sophie (00:08):
it It's tell me, Ryan, about your business Kaniksu and
what you do.
Ryan (00:12):
Yeah, happy to.
So, Kaniksu is a local internetservice provider.
We're based in northern Idaho.
We started out as what's calleda fixed base wireless operator,
which means that we install alittle dish or antenna on the
side of your house, and thenthat dish or antenna points to a
tower that we have.
Somewhere a few miles away, andthen we can provide, you know,
internet service that way.
(00:32):
But as we started to grow, we,we started to realize that there
was a great opportunity to domore than just wireless
internet.
So we started doing fiber aswell.
Fiber, the way we do it is webury it all underground and but
every connection point have gothrough and connect everything.
And then we also use that weconnect the to the house.
We've got all differentconnection points that are a
little bit tedious to to, to getup and running, but anyway, so
(00:55):
we've been doing that now forabout about five years.
And we, we really enjoyed it,really the community.
Sophie (01:01):
And what got you started to create Kaniksu
Ryan (01:07):
Kaniksu was a very selfish reason to get started.
I wanted better internet formyself I couldn't find better
internet myself and I read anarticle randomly, somebody me,
not related starting aninternet, but about a, a group
in western washington orcasIsland or San Juan Islands, me,
who had done something verysimilar, but they'd done it as a
(01:27):
co-op just to the neighbors getwell, that seems like it could
work.
So I kind of looked into it andto make a long story kind of
short.
All the pieces kind of fell intoplace to kind of make this work.
And I realized though, if I'mgonna go to all this trouble,
kind of ought to be a businesscause it's gonna a lot of, my
time so I looked at how would I,how I business and started
(01:48):
talking to the community andinterest in the community to get
better internet.
And, and off, off we went.
My, my crazy little story I liketo tell is I put up some yard
yard signs, just kind of to seehow interested people were.
It took me about 30 minutes toget these yard signs set the the
community and they had it.
So if you go to a website, youcould sign up and say, I'm
interested.
I put the signs out and I goback to my computer and I look,
(02:09):
and there was already two peoplethat had signed up in the 30
minutes I was away.
So clearly there was someinterest, so,
Sophie (02:16):
oh yeah.
And for us, being in a smalltown, that's a lot interest
already in 30 minutes.
Ryan (02:22):
And and over the course of about a week, and week and a
half, I lose track of time Wehad about 90 to a hundred
people.
So we were, we were prettyenthused and excited about that.
Sophie (02:31):
Brilliant.
Yeah.
And we Kaniksu our house and welove it.
Ryan (02:36):
Great.
Sophie (02:37):
Thank you much for creating this business.
Ryan (02:40):
You're welcome
Sophie (02:41):
Because absolutely right.
a lot better than anything elseavailable.
So part of being an internetcompany, there.
You like installing, digging,optic and putting the satellite,
you know, up at people's homes.
So you need a work truck dothat.
(03:02):
Can you tell us about what yourneeds were you were looking to
get a work truck?
Ryan (03:08):
Yeah, so we knew we wanted to get into fiber optic
business, and we knew, you know,when we're doing just the, the
antenna installs, we can do withjust regular pickup.
a util suv utility vehicle begreat, but when we're doing
suddenly that changes a ofdifferent pieces and parts to,
(03:28):
we of different tools and,biggest thing is we need to it
climate controlled because the.
The, the temperature that you'redoing this work at will really
make a difference in terms ofhow it splices and also how how
easy the material to work fiberstrands, themselves like you
work with.
And so we we knew we wanted tosomething that work.
(03:48):
A lot people use trailers.
They'll use vans, but I'd heardpeople about using old ambulance
thought, well, that, that mightbe kind of cool way to do it.
But I never really gave it anyserious thought.
So we were we were looking atdifferent sites for, or
different places for equipment.
And quite frankly, I was lookingmore at a bucket truck that we
could use if we be putting wirewire on poles, et cetera.
(04:12):
And we found at, at the sameauction, we bought the, the
bucket truck, we found a anambulance.
And we just kind of thought,well, we'll bid on it and see
what happens.
We had our, our limit and wewanted to see where it went and
at ended up winners of the, ofthe ambulance.
And it was really interestingwhen we went and picked it up
I'd never driven a emergencyvehicle.
(04:33):
And they, they had a policepresence there right outside the
facility, and like am I supposedto be doing anything with this?
so I stopped and I asked him, Isaid, should I be registering
this?
Do I need to do somethingdifferent with the registration
to make sure that I'm legalhere?
And he is like, Nope, have agood day.
So I drove home and, you know,everything basically worked in
there.
We had the, the light bar, thesirens, all that stuff was still
(04:56):
functional in the ambulance whenwe bought it.
But of course it wasn't stuffthat we necessarily needed, but
it was fun, if you will, for ashort period of time to kind of
play with it.
So
Sophie (05:05):
That's brilliant.
Did you need a commercialdriver's license drive the
ambulance?
Ryan (05:10):
not this one.
It's small enough that we couldregister it as just a, a well
you could register it as aprivate vehicle, but since it's
a business vehicle, we didregister it as a commercial
vehicle in Idaho.
And the really, the biggestdesignation that that gave us is
we could tow I wanna say was upto up to 26,000, have a total
val have a total weight withtowing of 26,000 pounds.
(05:31):
We're certainly not gonna evertow that much with it, but we
kinda like the idea of havingthat flexibility that we could
tow something behind it and nothave to really worry about if we
were reaching a certainthreshold that the state have a
problem.
Sophie (05:42):
So what kind of ambulance you have?
Ryan (05:45):
So what I I a, 1999 Ford F four 50.
So it's truck version of fordtruck, basically super Duty they
do make an ambulance.
I've seen one floating aroundThat's a van.
Version, but the truck issomeone has all the towing
capability with it.
I it's just a base like or Xlpso real inside, but that's all
(06:08):
they they wanted anyway, we'rebox on the back anyway,
Sophie (06:12):
You tell me about what the ambulance, like the mileage
and the hours and what you werelooking at considering
Ryan (06:19):
Yeah, so this is, when we bought it had about 98,000 miles
on it.
I don't remember the hours, butknew relatively high.
From our perspective, we werewith the higher hours because we
knew most the time that vehiclegonna be sitting there idle
without a whole lot of, load onthe ambulances, you know, hurry
(06:40):
get to scene, maybe put a mileor two or five miles on vehicle
to get to to scene.
may spend an hour or two idlingthey're.
While they're taking whateverneeds be done with medical
situation.
That perspective, it's beenpretty good.
Have had a few repairs thatwe've needed to do.
But they were all things we werewell within our risk threshold
(07:01):
for, for being a, an auctionpurchase.
As example, we had do glow plugreplacement.
we soon going to have to do sometransmission but we got such
great deal at on it compared towhat we would have paid for a,
comparable vehicle, whether wasan ambulance something else that
we, we felt like those risks andthose costs were, were worth it
(07:24):
to us
Sophie (07:25):
You talked about the weight limit with the vehicle
and being able to tow.
How much equipment are youstoring inside of the vehicle?
Was it important that you'd beable to store a lot of weight
inside the vehicle as well astowing.
Ryan (07:39):
Weight?
Not so much.
Most of what we're, we'restoring in there is fairly
light, it's volume that we're,we're more than anything,
connectors extra cable, sometools what we call enclosures,
which is a waterproof boxbasically that goes in our
little underground vault.
That's that way keeping all thewater out of the connectors that
we've installed.
It, it's things like that.
(08:01):
We have some tools in there suchas shovels and.
Signs and ladders, but for themost part, I wouldn't, it's,
it's not a whole lot of weight.
Which lends itself well if we dowant to tow because we've got
more weight available fortowing.
But no, we, we really haven'thad to do a whole lot with, with
heavy, heavy equipment in the,in the ambulance itself when we
did our first project with theambulance, we were still trying
(08:22):
to figure things out and we havecalled a reel trailer.
We put the fiber on of oftrailer.
And then you can spool Weactually for a while were
pulling that reel trailer withthe ambulance and I have some
pictures.
It was a, a really funny sightto see an ambulance with that
big reel trailer behind so
Sophie (08:40):
That's so cool.
Ryan (08:41):
Yeah.
Sophie (08:42):
You put hitch to use already.
You mentioned like climatecontrol was really important.
So the ambulance you won AC andheating like worked worked
Ryan (08:54):
For the most part.
I mean, any vehicle that age andcondition, there was gonna be
some things that went wrong withit, and we knew that going into
it.
The AC technically worked, butit wasn't really working that
well.
We just basically recharged the,the refrigerant and I think had
to do one thing.
But yeah, it, it works reallywell now.
It's especially nice in thesummer when it's so hot out.
(09:15):
I, I feel a little guilty attimes if I'm in there working
while my employee's outsidebecause I can sit in the nice
air conditioning while he's outthere pulling cable or doing
whatever outside.
Sophie (09:23):
From when you picked up the ambulance to, when you put
it into like service what wasyour process for getting it
ready to put to work?
Ryan (09:33):
I wish I could say I had a really scientific process or a
really well thought out process.
But it was really, I, I guessthe best way to say this is we
bought this as we were startingour very first fiber.
project.
And so we were kind of wingingeverything as we went.
We, we knew we wanted to use theambulance, I guess, before we
(09:53):
even bought it.
The very first thing we did iswe kind of sat in and looked at
it and said, okay, yeah, thisseems like this would be
comfortable enough.
It has enough space in it thatwe could use the the bench to
work on.
on.
But then the next thing we didafter that is look at, okay,
what.
Needed to be repaired to make itusable immediately.
As an example, we had to replaceall four Yes, four batteries in
(10:14):
the ambulance.
We had to replace the alternatoralternators, excuse me.
then we up need to put it.
And, and then we also wanted tomake sure it was legal.
We wanted to take advantage ofthe, the lights that it had, not
the light bar, but the otherlights around it.
But the problem was, is to belegal.
We couldn't be flashing redlights.
And so we had to go and figureout who made the light lens
(10:38):
covers buy some that were amberinstead, and replace all of them
with Amber.
And then we also went throughand disabled a few things that
we were concerned aboutpotentially being a problem such
as the siren.
It's fun to play with, yes, butbut I didn't want that.
Somebody bumping that in themiddle of the street, and it
suddenly going off and eitherscaring people or people
(10:58):
complaining we using themincorrectly.
So, just said to be safe, wewere gonna dis, disconnect these
things.
Beyond that, there were a coupleother real minor things that we
wanted to look is you know, whattools did we wanna put in there?
But for the most part it wasabout let's go out there and try
this.
We, we we did our very firstenclosure vault and we realized
(11:19):
we don't have a really good wayto secure the cable so it's not
flapping all around.
And so we We went out and webought ice so we could put, you
know, mount that mounted that inthere.
But it was just a lot of trialand error.
Sophie (11:30):
How long was it from when you picked it up to when it
went out on its first job?
Ryan (11:34):
About four months.
Most of that was not because ofa lot of prep work for the
ambulance, it was more of wewere just, like I said, getting
started.
A lot of the undergrounddigging.
It happened during those fourmonths and by the time we were
ready to start using it, a lotof the underground.
So I wanna say we probablystart, u started using it.
We bought it in July and we wereprobably using it consistently
(11:58):
by late October and intoNovember.
Sophie (12:02):
and you mentioned replacing four batteries.
I'm imagining they were prettybig.
Mm-hmm.
Like hefty batteries.
So tell me more about like whatthe power situation is like and
how you're using it.
For tools.
Ryan (12:16):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's one of the biggestreasons that we wanted to buy
the ambulance when we saw it.
It has I think it's, it's threedifferent locations in the
ambulance where we can plug inAC power, so there's an inverter
in there and it can run i, i, Iwanna say it's running 2000,
either 1500 or 2000 watts ofpower.
Not to get too technical or geekout here, but that's essentially
(12:37):
essentially a home is gonna begonna be.
gonna be 1500 or 2000 watts.
And so we felt like we could runvirtually we would need to in
there.
Whereas, you know, most of thetime when you take an in and
plug it into your, your cartruck, you're gonna be lucky
able.
be able to power a laptop off ofit or a computer off of it.
And so the power, and so we, youknow, we have equipment we're
trying to charge.
We have few times, sometimes weusing in some cases we're, we're
(13:00):
we're drilling.
and we, you know, it's, it's avariety of different tools we
may be using.
And having the versatility ofthe, the power really nice.
nice.
So
Sophie (13:11):
have you ever, like, through the process of working
on a job run out of power in theambulance, like drain the
Ryan (13:17):
No, we, we do keep the ambulance running whenever
we're, we're working in there.
Just so we don't have to worryabout that.
You could make an argument thatyou don't have to do that.
It's got what's called anisolator in between the.
The two sets of batteries.
So in theory, I could run the,the house or the cabin batteries
completely dead, but still startthe vehicle up afterwards.
But I just, I've always worriedthat we're be burning them up
(13:40):
too quickly and and so justseems more prudent just to keep
it running all the time.
And for for the most part that'sbeen fine.
The trickiest thing that we'verun into is there's an occasion
where we've had to do somethinglate at night, emergency repair,
whatever.
And we just try to be aware ofthe fact that we have neighbors
who may be to sleep.
And and we've even had one caseneighbor complain about the
(14:01):
diesel.
But overall's it's not reallybeen a problem.
Sophie (14:05):
We're in in north Idaho.
We get snow.
How has it been?
Through the winter driving
Ryan (14:10):
That's that's gonna be the one area that I wish it was
different.
It is just a two-wheel drive.
It is a dually.
Once we put new tires on ithandled a lot better in the
snow, surprisingly well in thesnow.
However, we, we do keep chainsin there and with the chains on,
it's fine.
It's just, a pain sometimes toput the chains on.
And especially if you're, ifyou're transitioning a lot
(14:32):
between pavement and, and, snowor ice.
But it does make us a little bitnervous.
One of the roads as an example,I'm sure you're quite familiar
with, is very steep.
And the hill generally we canget up, but we're always a
little nervous about going backdown just because of sliding.
And so it does cause us to be alittle bit more cautious about
(14:52):
how we're using the winter.
winter For the most part, we'renot doing a lot of construction
in the winter, so it's not beena big deal.
It's really been more about ifwe have to do any maintenance or
repairs.
Sophie (15:04):
Yeah.
I was curious because I've seenyou up on the side when we still
have snow and I'm like, wow, weseem pretty good at that
ambulance up
Ryan (15:11):
Yeah, yeah.
We, we generally also wait on aday where it's clear, we know
gonna snow.
And we wait till the county hassanded the road so that have
some traction.
And like I said, overall it'sdone really especially since
we've new on.
With it being as heavy as it is,does give us bit traction.
But I would be lying if I saidwe never got it stuck.
(15:34):
So
Sophie (15:35):
Yeah.
with an ambulance ambulance isquite a large vehicle.
You've got, you know, moreweight in the back.
How has it been when you havegotten stuck to get it?
out of there?
Ryan (15:46):
We've only got it stuck once.
Let, let me be very clear.
It's not a, it's not a a, aserial or habitual thing for us.
But it really wasn't that bad.
We just used the little, theextra ooph of our one ton truck
to help pull it, you know,between what little traction we
could get from the ambulanceand, and then the, the one ton
pickup truck, it really wasn'tthat get out.
get out.
But we've also, like I tried tobe pretty, pretty cautious about
(16:08):
where we take it overall.
Yeah, it, it's always beensurprising to me because the
ambulance served most life inBurlington, Vermont, and I
would've would've assumed a likeVermont would likely single
vehicle.
They they must do a job inVermont.
of, of plowing and clear.
clear.
Sophie (16:26):
I'm gonna guess it was probably also driven on asphalt
roads, not the dirt roads thatwe've got here.
It's gonna be guest
Ryan (16:35):
I'm sure so, yeah
Sophie (16:38):
yeah does your ambulance have a sink or water?
Ryan (16:41):
No.
And I'm kind grateful about thatone.
One thing I don't, we don'treally necessarily need, it
would be nice times to wash ourhands, but I would rather not
have to deal with potentialmaintenance issues come from the
extra features.
So I'm, I'm, so, no, we don't,we that in there that in there.
Sophie (16:57):
What is one of the features that you love the most
about the ambulance as a worktruck?
Ryan (17:02):
I think one of the biggest things that's been really nice
for us is all the lights, and Idon't mean the flashing lights,
but it's got a bunch of whatthey call scene lights.
And so it's just basically youcan really illuminate,
especially at dark the areaaround where you're working.
And so what we end up doing isyou know, especially fall or
spring when it's not quite.
Light late enough in the day.
(17:23):
We, we can turn on those scenelights and we can see around us,
open up our, our vaults and pullout the equipment.
We can see how much water we'vegot in there that we're gonna be
sticking our hand in, whateverit may be.
And you know, it really gives usa good work area that we can, we
can use.
Those few times we've hademergency repairs as well.
You know, we're fixing itwhether it's day or night.
And so having that, That area tobe safer and just be able to see
(17:47):
what we're doing has been reallyamazing to have.
Sophie (17:50):
And these lights were they, Like the same ones that
were installed when you pickedup the ambulance, or did you
have to modify the, the lightsat all?
Ryan (18:00):
No, they were the same lights that were there when we
installed it or when we pickedit up.
It's it's, it's, yeah.
Anyway, the same ones that thereand they, they're just
surprisingly bright So
Sophie (18:10):
Fantastic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you have any like tips oradvice to people that are
looking purchasing an ambulanceas a work truck for what they
should consider while they'relooking at ambulances.
Ryan (18:22):
Biggest thing is you can do a walkthrough of it.
Look for signs rest.
Ours.
I believe mostly all aluminumembodied the the, box itself is
but you really see lot ofunderneath looking at the the
condition of, of vehicle, youknow, is, is it water
environment or salt environmentduring the winter?
(18:43):
You know, just for those typesof things.
the ambulance, we didn't know itthe time, but found the service
records in there and the, thethe fire that had, had
impeccable records.
And kind of made me realize wedid a rough tallying.
I, I wish I could remember rightwhat that was, of the dollar
amount that they on maintenancefor that vehicle over the life
(19:06):
that it.
And I, I take little I, I wannasay around hundred$120,000 in
maintenance that they spent onthat vehicle.
Now that Is, was reassuring andI guess maybe the best word I
come up that we weren't going tonecessarily find lot of major
issues.
Typically when you find an thathas maintained a vehicle that
(19:27):
they're catching a lot of thingsbefore they, they've been
neglected to the point wherethey need a lot of
Sophie (19:32):
Wonderful.
Thank you so much, Ryan.
Ryan (19:34):
You're welcome.
Sophie (19:35):
to sharing.
your story it's been really coolto hear
Ryan (19:40):
You're welcome
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