We we’re a little lucky as when we bought our van, all but the barn door and the sliding door were already ply lined. I must say I was pleased about this as when we were looking for the van I was looking at how much ply line kits were to just buy – on ebay they can go for anything from £45 (second hand and a bit decked in) t0 £185 (0obviously a rip off seen as though a sheet of ply from BnQ is about £11.00.
The other problem is cutting the templates out. Now we’re lucky as Alex has got a table saw and a jigsaw and it good with stuff like that, so he was able to measure up the barn and sliding door and cut the ply out for it. If you buy your van and it isn’t ply lined, then you either have the job of measuring up yourself and hoping for a few flukey cuts, or investing some cash in to a pre-cut one from ebay – either way it is a job that just has to be done as this is where you insulate the van.
Here’s a few pics of inside the van – you’ll see our ply lining is white – flashy hey lol!
Once you have all your ply lining sorted then you need to insulate the Van, so it is warm when you’re living in it (which we might be if the bloody recession continues!).
There a loads of different insulations, but Alex just nipped to BnQ when they were BOGOF – so it was 150mm loft insulation made from recycled plastic so it doesn’t give off those nasty spaws that irritate the skin. It turned out to be a good choice and not only really noticeably insulates the van, but also reduces the sound too – so we no longer have to shout to each other when we’re driving – we can actually hear properly now!
A small note to mention about insulating – we wanted to insulate the roof too. However, 150mm is too thick and it makes the roof droop and it just isn’t strong enough to hold it. So we’re going to get some of that foil backed bubble wrap insulation. You can pick it up for £11.00 a roll from screw fix, whereas BnQ will try to take £30.00 off you for exactly the same thing!
We always measure DYI prices against Screwfix as they are usually cheaper on everything!
It took Alex about a day to fit the insulation because he had a bit of trouble drilling off the rivets because he kept cutting himself on the burrs of the rivets as they kept getting stuck on the drill bit so he had to pull them off – i think he had a cut on every finger on his right hand! But it was worth it!
