Progress on the New Van So Far

I thought I’d pop in with a quick update on the progress we’ve made on the new van so far. We started working on it over the bank holiday weekend (last weekend) and got a good 2 full days on it, plus a little bit on the Friday evening.

We managed to get the van in almost the same state as the last van in just that weekend! The thing with the last van was that when we took out the ply, we discovered a lot of rust at the wheel arch etc, so it had to go in the garage a few times. Shane also did a lot of work treating rust externally underneath the van to try and treat it before it got too worse, so that all took up a lot of his time.

We started off by removing all of the plywood, then laying the flooring beams and glueing them down. We learned the last time that the floor had a lot of movement in it because the beams weren’t as close together, so we sorted that this time around and put them in every gap.

Then we layed the roll insulation in-between the flooring beams. We did two layers to try and get it as insulated as possible. Once that was done, Shane and my dad cut out the new wood, using the old wood as templates, which saved so much time.

Once that was done, the walls got insulated with the celotex insulation board. They cut it to fit all the gaps, and left spaces for the windows. Once that was all in and the gaps filled in with expanding foam, the plywood was put back up.

Then it was time to cut out the windows! I’m surprised how easy they are to install compared to the bonded windows. I mean, they’re both pretty easy, but there’s a lot more that can go wrong with the bonded windows, like leaks etc.

We’ve changed our minds again and decided to just go for bonded windows on the back doors. There’s almost a £400 price difference and we’re planning on maybe putting up a bike rack or storage box on the back anyway, which means we wouldn’t really be able to open the rear windows, and with the two side windows, we decided it’s not really necessary.

Once the windows were in, they started on the roofvents. We’ve got two in this van instead of the one that we had in the last one, just because we have the room for it now. We’ve also got a smaller one in the bathroom, with a fan for better ventilation.

This weekend, Shane and my dad started working on laying the outline of the frame for the bathroom, mostly to figure out where the roofvents could be installed. Once that was sorted out and they were fitted, Shane started work on the insulation for the ceiling and the electrics for the led lights.

I can’t believe how much has been done in the past couple weekends! Hopefully, it’ll be finished by the summer holidays, and I can’t wait to go on some adventures in it! It’ll be so amazing!

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