Insulation and a new floor

Insulation

'Superquit'
'Superquilt' insulation, shown here at the sliding door opening, was the eventual choice

So the starting point has to be the ever important program of work, or list (I was a Quantity Surveyor, programs of work were the 'norm' and as age sets in lists get more important as the gray cells fade!). So

    the program of work looks like this:
  • get a good clean, dry base
  • what insulation to choose? (so much choice)
  • fitting

Getting a good clean and dry base should be simple! The key here has to be 'prep' as failure at this stage is going to spell disaster later.

I'd already stripped everything out and sorted the rot as well as discovered the water ingress source. These were all sorted and are/will be covered elsewhere on these pages.

'floor insulation'
insulation being laid on top of the fillets

The floor had no insulation. As we felt the cold striking up on our last damp trip of 2006 insulating the floor, to us, was a must do.

Choosing the insulation was not easy. Some time was spent trawling through forums plus visiting four local large DIY stores. In the end the choice was simple.

    the choices were:
  • standard 'fiberglass' or 'rockwool' based
  • variants on good old 'bubble' wrap
  • and something space aged!

The standard option failed as water and vermin were likely long term problems. We did come across all sorts of neat tricks to keep it dry in plastic bags etc but this looked like 'hard' work. Bubble wrap was quickly discounted as we didn't fancy the floor 'popping' as we walked over it! so it was down to 'space age' technology.

Thermawrap Superquilt won as it ticked all the boxes. It was waterproof, vermin shouldn't be a problem as long as it was sealed well, it was thin, very thin, and it provided 'superb' insulation values.

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The van was clear so insulation measured up and laid over the whole floor area once the 'filler' pieces (see picture above) were replaced. These are placed in main 'pressure' points in the floor stop the floor sagging over time. On our Autosleeper conversion these were 9mm thick.

With the pieces cut, trimmed and 'loose' laid it was time to work out what was needed before fixing. The original floor had been fixed down with silicone (see first picture above). So this was how the filler pieces got fixed.It was intended to hold the insulation in place via the ply floor fixings, that failed at the first attempt. Once the ply was drilled each time the drill hit the insulation it just grabbed it and curled it round the drill. In the end a few small blobs of silicone held the insulation in place till the ply went down and fittings were back in place. As it happened this worked a treat but a bit of work did have to go into fixing at the side door. This was done by drilling (no insulation here) through the floor and then self tapping screws into the metal. Worked a treat but be careful on the length of the screws. These are going into the sliding door track space so great care needed to get clearance. You've been warned.

All joints and edges were made/sealed with aluminum tape (keep any damp and vermin out). This made the whole task a lot simpler.

Lastly the order of work to complete the floor laying was:

  • lay ply floor base
  • re-fit kitchen units (bit of a 're-build' along the way) - screwed to ply
  • refit the bed - fixed to raised rear engine bay, van side and kitchen unit
  • cut the floor and insulation for the table post and gas vent (these were sealed with loads of silicone as they're open to the elements)
  • buy and lay new floor covering - carpet in our case fixed with double sided tape
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Resources

insulation - Thermawrap Superquilt
timber and sundries - local Wickes, B&Q and Focus superstores