Spending a weekend on your knees...

Time to get the floor sorted.

We camped in the van last weekend for the first time at Bustypes, the April evenings were still pretty chilly. Having insulated the roof and walls, the only really cold spot left was the floor. Determined not to repeat the cold night's sleep for next weekend's Stanford Hall show, it's time the floor was put right.

First up is even more sound deadening. Just in select areas to add weight to the vibrating panels.


Next up, insulation, again to begin with, in the larger gaps between the floor's corrugations.


Then on to full lengths of insulation for the whole floor:


Building up those layers. Next it's a layer of laminate floor underlay:


After this, the new plywood goes down. This was cut using the old rough ply as a template, tidying up any edges where necessary.



Finally, the rubber tiles go down as the final layer.


The tiles were bought cheap from B&Q as a discontinued line and, as such, we're not able to buy in batches of continued part numbers. The downside of this is some of the tiles, although black, appear blue in strong sunlight. As this is only a temporary floor until the main camping interior goes in, we're not too concerned. By the time we've given the floor some abuse it won't matter that the tiles don't match exactly!

Here's an example of the kind of 'weekend load' the van gets to carry:


One final tip: As it's hard to source a single piece of ply big enough for the floor of your van, it's good to mark out a centre-line. It's a great way of keeping things square as the floor of the T5 tapers slightly narrower towards the front. Cutting and measuring materials this weekend would have been twice as hard without it!



Next weekend: a trip to the Stanford Hall show in Leicestershire. Picking up our new Khyam Drive-away awning too - a report will follow shortly after.