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hvac:insulation

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Insulation

Boy oh boy is this a complicated topic. There is no clear solid consensus on what the “best” way to insulate a van is, but there sure are a lot of opinions with very little in the way of empirical data. At best, you're making an educated guess and almost everyone insulates their van differently.

FarOutRide's guide is a good place to start.


Goals of insulation

Insulation can help retain heat in cold weather, and reduce transfer from hot body panels in direct sunlight in warmer weather. Insulation will not, by itself, make your van cooler than ambient in the summer or warmer than ambient in the winter. But it will help when aided with either heating or ventilation to keep the interior more livable.

Tips and Tricks

It is better to insulate the entire van poorly than to only insulate part of the van well.

Windows are going to be the largest source of both heat loss or heat gain. Especially If you have a van with windows all around, it's pointless to do any insulation to the body at all if you're not doing something about the windows in the form of insulated]] or reflective window coverings. Commercial solutions are available but there's plenty of DIY options for them as well. Again, exactly what type of window covering you have isn't as important as just having SOME sort of window covering.

Similarly, the sheet metal of the van makes an incredibly effective thermal bridge. You can go crazy with stuffing Thinsulite into every single nook and cranny, but even just a few strips of exposed body sheet metal to the interior will almost completely negate all of that work. To effectively insulate your van, everything needs to be covered. Even a thin covering of carpet spray-glued to exposed sheet metal will make a world of difference.

4-Way stretch carpet is ideal for this. Because it has some give to it, it's possible to mold it over and around all the sort of crazy compound curves that makes up the van body. Many videos on youtube showing this process, here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TON7xuJkQs8 or here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob9TmLn8D8o

heat from solar panels

Non-insulating folks in mild climates may want to use some insulation on the interior of the roof underneath the solar panels. Heat re-radiated from the underside of the panels may increase roof temperatures even though the roof is shaded by the panels.1)

further reading

See this write-up of testing floor vs ceiling insulation.

hvac/insulation.1642129902.txt.gz · Last modified: 2022/01/13 22:11 by princess_fluffypants