Advice needed for Wiring 12 volt System

Re: Advice needed for Wiring 12 volt System

Crystal,
You two would also probably benefit from Home Power Magazine, either in hard copy or online. If you go to their website, they have tons of back articles relating to all sorts of off grid living. Some of the "code corner" pieces by John Wiles in particular could be of great help to get your system set up safely.
On the buss bars, sorry if I misread what you were using them for, I was envisioning that you were making some sort of a disconnect set up... OR were you looking for something to connect the batteries to...OR...?
You definately don't want any buss bars to be energizing any boxes or structures, so in most electrical panels if you look inside you'll notice that anything "hot" is insulated from the metal enclosure itself.
As far as building a disconnect enclosure, it's certainly easy enough to construct; it's more a matter of making sure that everything is properly set up so that you don't get currents where they are not wanted, and to keep from having multiple ground/neutral bonds etc. This is why I hesitate to go into great detail on this, as grounding is an important issue that I'm not comfortable trying to describe to a beginner over the internet (others may be more willing/able to go into more details here).
Judging from your questions you're entering that stage where "a little bit of knowledge can get you into a lot more trouble than no knowledge at all". Not to discourage you in this endeavor; just take some time to keep learning a bit more before jumping in head first here. That book in particular should clarify many of the important concepts. In the mean time like Mike said if you can hook up a basic battery charger to those batteries that should be ok.