In this blog post, I’ll be explaining how I began to insulate the van. Insulation is extremely important for the comfort of living full-time in your campervan, trust me when I say, we have a lot of experience in living in a non-insulated van and it isn’t fun in both high temperature and the cold!
A well insulated vehicle can mean less condensation, mould and generally prevent damp issues in your camper. When you cook and sleep in a metal van that’s not correctly insulated, then the warm air from the steam or your breath can condensate on the cold metal walls causing a surprisingly high amount of moisture. This eventually can cause mould and rot in your interior. It can even lead to possible health issues too!
The products we have chosen are from the well known UK brand – Dodo Mat.
It can be considered less budget friendly, however this is an area of the build that we also didn’t want to skimp on. We need good insulation for our dog Lilly to stay cooler in the summer months!
So basically the first phase of insulation was to apply 6mm closed cell foam insulation and sound deadening to the metal panels of the van. The product from Dodo Mat we used was so easy to apply with a self adhesive layer.
I simply measured the areas of the van I needed to insulate with a tape measure and then cut the insulation to size. It can be quite tricky to get into the nooks and crannies of the van panels and the insulation is extremely sticky, but with a little patience and perseverance we managed to cover all the necessary areas.
The product we used for this first layer of insulation was 6mm Dodo Thermo Liner v3, we found that we needed 3 rolls of this to cover what we needed in our VW crafter (long wheelbase)
Once applied to the van, I then used aluminium tape to cover all the gaps and joints in the insulation, again this was easy because it’s self adhesive, so you just peel off the paper backing.
It was actually the longest part of this install but when it was complete we immediately noticed the difference in the temperature inside the van compared to the outside! Even though this is only the first part of the insulation, it provided more than enough sound deadening to the panels!
Now looking like the inside of a NASA space shuttle with foil everywhere, we were now ready to add some of the fleece insulation (recycled plastic bottles in form of wool)
This product from Dodo Mat as well: Dodo Fleece Evo 50mm. This is easy to apply to the van with a tin of contact adhesive and you simple just tear the fleece up to squeeze into smaller areas. I wouldn’t recommend overdoing it and packing the fleece into gaps too tightly because it needs to be able to capture air in order to work effectively.
The advantages of using this particular type of insulation is that it’s nice and thick but also doesn’t rot unlike other ‘natural wool’ types. Being plastic, it’s moisture resistant and also doesn’t throw out itchy fibres when you’re installing it! It’s also odourless unlike sheep’s wool!
Once the fleece was installed we noticed a dramatic difference in the internal temperature of the van! It’s an awesome product and we are seriously impressed with it so far! And as far as the noise, the van sounds more like a car now, no more panels rattling and banging!
During this stage of the build, I also began to run the first phase of electrical wiring in the van. As you can probably see from the photos in this post, I used conduit to run wires in all the areas we needed throughout the van. These wires will service the kitchen and seating area, lighting and heating. I may go into further details in future posts about the electrical side of things, but as explained before earlier in the series, there will be no ‘how to’ posts.
There are plenty of accurate tutorials online on how to build a campervan, but it’s important to remember that unless they give evidence of actually being up to date on their qualifications… tread carefully.
What I can say though, with our build, we are always considering the weight implications of the build, and it all adds up very quickly! We are modifying a vehicle at the end of the day and weight is extremely important to keep an eye on, for legal reasons too!
Other factors that are always in the back of my mind are the forces the vehicle endures when in motion. So basically, anything that is added or built into the van, needs to be potentially protected from vibration, chafing and some pretty extreme forces from driving down the road. Wiring especially. Make sure you choose the correct wire sizing, protection (conduit for example) and type.. (stranded or single core etc AC or DC and so on) There are conductors specifically designed to endure mobile applications (marine for example) and others that are only to be used in buildings. Do your own research and if ever in doubt, seek out a professional. Our only bit of advice would be to seriously think about everything you’re doing and adding to your van! TIP: when it comes to wiring – label everything! It will help later in remembering what goes where.
Now all that’s left to do is insulate the ceiling and door areas before the next phase of insulation, but that will be detailed in another future post (we plan to use a thicker product from Dodo Mat)
There’s also the dreaded “vapour barrier” argument to get involved in too haha so stay tuned for that!
Thanks for reading and if you have any questions, head over to the Officer Travels Facebook group or fire me an email on dec@officertravels.com
Continue reading our camper conversion series;
