One of the most important parts of the van build is insulation. If this is not done, your van will be cold in winter and hot in summer. With the right insulation, your van will retain your generated heat in the winter and maintain the cooler temperature internally in the summer. There are many ways to do this, this is just how I did my campervan.
The Floor
Sometimes, insulation on the floor is skipped. This may be due to the van being summer-only, or you may struggle with head height and decide to opt for maximum head height. My van is a Ford Transit high top, one of the highest vans, so I can afford to lose 25mm in insulation as I am just 5' 11" tall.
The first step after cleaning the floor, fixing any holes and treating the rust spots, is to lay the 38mm x 25mm batons. These are all pressure-treated just in case any water does get in. Try and think where your key pieces of furniture will be and try and align them. Having an additional baton to screw to will help when securing your internals. I set mine approximately 300mm apart and set it across the van. Each baton is secured to the floor using SikaFlex 522 adhesive. Do not skimp on the adhesives here, unless you are screwing them down too. I chose not to put additional screws in my flaw and just bonded them down.
I then also added length-wise batons at approx 300mm. I hate floors that move underfoot so wanted a solid floor. Wait at least 24 hours for it to set before moving on to the next stage.
Take a photo of your grid, it will be handy later when adding furniture.
The next step is to cut 25mm PIR board and fill all the holes between the batons. Try and get them as tight as possible to prevent heat loss. Once in place use foil tape to cover the batons and edges of the PIR board. The idea is to create a vapour barrier so that any moisture generated in the van stays in the van and does not escape into the insulation or metal panels of the van. This should prevent rust long term. Make sure to extend the foil tape up the walls a little so that even after the ply floor has been added you can connect the vapour barrier to the walls later.
Most builders use 12mm, 15mm or 18mm plywood. I am trying to keep the van weight to a minimum, so I chose 12mm plywood. I had solid batons below so felt 12mm would be enough. Make sure your plywood joins are over a baton. This is why I put the batons across the van to give the joints the maximum support to the plywood. Before screwing down the plywood, take off your shoes (after ensuring there are no splinters possible) and walk over the floor. This is the time to make sure it is flat and level. Sand any joints, fix any loose batons and add any extra glue on the batons needed. Once happy put in at least 100 screws to keep the floor down.
Now walk the floor again without shoes on. This is the last chance to fix it. Once the vinyl or carpet or whatever is down, it becomes a pain and expensive to fix any issue.
Finally, vacuum the floor, you get used to vacuuming a lot when building a van.
I chose a hardwearing vinyl, known as Altro. This is about 1.5mm to 2mm thick and is a very hardwearing vinyl used in schools and hospitals. It is easy to clean and of course waterproof. Dry fit it, cut it to size. It is hard to cut and will blunt a new fresh blade very quickly. When done, walk the floor again with no shoes on, making sure the plywood joints cannot be felt and all screws are countersunk completely.
When ready, roll it back halfway across the van, using trim adhesive or vinyl flooring spray glue on the floor and the back of the vinyl, wait for it to get tacky as per glue instructions and roll it back slowly ensuring there are no air bubbles. then repeat for the other half.
Walk the floor again with no shoes to make sure you are happy with the result. Rejoice in your first major build task, celebrate with a cup of tea and stand and stare at your handy work.
Insulation
There are many insulation products on the market, but I used Dodo Dead Mat, Dod Fleece Evo, Dod Thermal Liner and PIR boards. The PIR ranged from 25mm, 40mm and 50mm.
The Dodo Dead Mat (sound-deadening material) is important. This will dull down the tinny panel van sound. Also at this point, it is a good idea to run any electrical cables you need to hide in the insulation. It will be impossible to add them later. Also, you may wish to first fix some wiring at this point as it is easier to pass the wires through the conduit when they are not in the van and are straight. It is possible to add the wires later, but you will probably not be able to fit the same amount of cables down the conduits doing it later.
I used the PIR cut-to-shapes to fill all the large panel voids. These are secured with spray-on adhesive glue and stick pins. It is important to make sure they are secured to stop any squeaking later on.
Use Dodo Fleece Evo to fill all the smaller voids, the Evo is 50mm thick, so I doubled it up in most places. Remember to get all the small voids, like the room trusses and door pillars. Some pillars are impossible to fill, but fill everything you can.
I purposely left the roof insulation for later. I needed to ensure the wiring was added and to confirm where the edge of cabinets etc went. But it is just a 40mm PIR curved over the roof.
The Dodo Thermal Liner is useful for parts such as pillars where you cannot get any or much insulation. It is about 6mm thick, with glue on one side and the vapour barrier on the other. It is quite expensive so I only used it where I needed to. If PIR or Fleece fitted, then I used those as cheaper options.
At this point, I also started to add batons to the walls. This will offer a good securing point for the cabinets later. These are 25mm thick so it is another opportunity to get another 25mm of PIR in there.
Altogether, all the supplies and parts for the insulation cost £800, money well spent
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