Welcome

WELCOME


Welcome to the blog for our campervan build

This project began in May 2020 during the 'lockdown' in the UK due to COVID-19. We were supposed to be touring Europe in our existing camper conversion 'Movano The Van Hoe' but this obviously wasn't going to be possible... So after finishing a pretty ambitious Hot Tub Trailer build (see the blog here) we decided we needed another project to keep us occupied during however many weeks left of lockdown.

We put Movano The Van Hoe up for sale and bought a Renault Master which we will convert over the coming weeks/months.

We are fortunate in that Elliot has a fully equipped workshop with tools and space to work, and we're also fortunate in that this is Elliot's second camper conversion, so we're not totally winging it!

This is a blog of the full build and I make no apologies that it is very photo heavy. The primary purpose of the blog is to document this build both for our own records, and for anyone else who's interested.

We plan on touring around Scotland with our Trailer Hot Tub when travel restrictions are relaxed enough to allow this.

Disclaimer: This is NOT meant as a tutorial. Do not try this at home. Always seek professional expert advice.

Tuesday, 26 May 2020

Another back door, fluff and icing

Today we managed to carpet the ply for the other back door and started on securing the insulation.

We are using Knauf Eko Roll loft insulation in any parts of panels with moving parts (e.g. the bottom panel of the doors which houses the handle and locking mechanism). This stuff looks super fluffy but it's actually irritating to the skin and not a comfy place for a nap. It's easy to use, just rip apart to size and stuff in the holes... The parts using the Eko Roll are covered are vapour barriered using the same 4mm PET bubble insulation that's under the floor, which is foil taped into place. The reason we've created this vapour barrier is because as there's some chat that the Eko Roll insulation can absorb moisture. (The last van conversion used a similar loft insulation and hasn't encountered any moisture problems, but we want to err on the side of caution!)







Most of the insulation however is using 50mm thick Celotex insulation board which has already all been cut to size (see previous post!)

Next we got to play with some fun skooshy chemicals... The Celotex boards were affixed to the inside panels of the van with Soudall adhesive foam... Which is expensive but very, very, very sticky! 


It's applied around the edges of each insulation panel, looking very much like strawberry icing, and allowed five minutes to become 'stringy' and then it's pressed onto the panel of the van. 



The adhesive is allowed to dry for half an hour and then we've used Soudal expanding foam around the periphery to further insulate and secure the boards. This stuff is great fun! 


We used foil tape to 'control' the expanding foam and keep it where it's meant to be!


This will all be left overnight to dry, and we'll trim any excess expanding foam tomorrow. There's some panels we couldn't complete today as we need to be further along in the build (e.g. have cables finalised)

(The smily faced and ticks is our own little code to indicate which panels are completed in terms of insulation!)


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