Materials/Spend:
- Deadening Strips - £44.99
- Insulation Board - £151.92
- Recycled Bottle Wool - £33.00
- Vapour Barrier - £65.00
- Spray Adhesive - £14.39
- Aluminium Foil Tape - £6.25
TOTAL: £315.55
When looking into the most effective way to insulate my van, it was immediately apparent that there are SO many different ways to do this. Not only are there a range of different materials you can use, but also a variety of different methods.
For the main part of my insulation, I decided to go with insulation board - It’s sturdy, easy to shape to the main sections of the ceiling and roof, and it’s a very effective insulator. I’m then going to use recycled bottle wool to stuff in all the voids and tight spaces.
I’m then going to cover the whole lot with a vapour barrier to keep the moisture out. This is very important. To briefly get a bit sciency - as you probably know already, condensation occurs because of the difference in temperature outside and inside the van. Moisture will collect on the inside of the van and if left, will cause rust and mould. In some situations, you can create a breathable solution which will allow for moisture to be ventilated, however the van is essentially a big tin can where very little moisture can escape from.
Adding a vapour barrier to the inside of the van, as opposed to in between the side of the van and your insulation, will prevent any moisture from getting through to your insulation. Science lesson over.
Sound Deadening
After cleaning the interior walls of the van, the first step was to add sound deadening strips to all the big areas of metal. The deadening strips have their own adhesive so it’s a simple case of cutting them to shape and sticking them in place.
Recycled Bottle Wool
The next step was to stuff all the voids in the walls and ceiling with the recycled bottle wool. It’s really easy just to tear the wool off the roll and use your fingers to push it into place. It’s important to note that you shouldn’t cram the wool in too tight otherwise it loses its effectiveness as an insulator. The wool relies on air pockets between the plastic fibres in order to effectively insulate, so if stuffed too tightly these air pockets are destroyed.
Insulation Board
Once the van was sufficiently stuffed, it was time to add the insulation board. Insulation board is extremely easy to cut in order to fit each of the gaps in the wall, however it can just get extremely messy! I tend to use a saw to cut big sections of insulation board and then something as small as a bread knife to trim sections down.
Once the sections of insulation board were in place in the walls, I used more wool around the board to make sure there were no gaps.
For the roof, I simply cut large sections of insulation board and then fixed them in place with small bits of tape. As the roof curves ever so slightly, in some of the larger sections I made a thin cut half way down the insulation board which allowed it to bend slightly in the middle when pressed against the roof.
Vapour Barrier
I would highly recommend getting some help fitting the vapour barrier, I struggled a wee bit on my own!
I first unscrewed and removed the ply flooring, as I wanted to add the vapour barrier over the top of the timber frame/insulation board I installed previously.
As the sheet of vapour wrap was 1.5m wide, I decided to wrap the van length ways to save cutting lots of strips of vapour barrier. I simply used spray adhesive to fix the vapour barrier in place.
The sheet is really easy to cut through with a stanley knife, so I sheeted straight across the windows and vents and then cut them out with a knife afterwards.
After I’d wrapped everything, I sealed the edges of each sheet with some foil tape, then I screwed the ply flooring straight back on top of the vapour barrier. Initially I was worried about screwing through the sheet, but apparently once screwed into place, this will form a tight seal.
If you have any questions at all, feel free to ping me an email or drop me a message on Instagram!
