GHOST Van Build - Insulation, Framing and Planning

hey guys what is going on today we are doing a little bit on the the installation of insulation so I'm finally at the build portion of my van this past month or month previous to this I spent all in Santa Cruz California with Tanya watt solar and Rudy racing Troy from van life Tech came down and I have now my heated floors installed all the mechanicals for all of that as well as tiny watt solar hooked it up with the solar roof deck as well as my entire box which is right back there itself now what we're gonna be doing is actually starting the build I have to get a lot of things laid out and planned out I've been meeting with my dad I throw up the boss then I spent three days driving to Boston and it's just been a whirlwind of just just so much crap so it is hot here in Boston right now try and work at a nice pace make sure you drink enough water but this portion of the build is all about insulation and what's on the other side of the insulation and maybe creating a thermal break we'll get into all that throughout the entire video I mentioned in my introductory video to the build series that I'm using stuff called rattletrap and then sprinters actually even have rattletrap that's already here this is rattletrap right here and I can put a link in description below it's like a sound deadener I guess and what I'm gonna do is I'm going to be putting it onto like portions of the wall that's right there I'm not gonna put it on the sliding door because I'm actually gonna be installing a window there so really I only need it in certain parts it's actually really easy to peel and stick that simple the wall is a little bit more difficult this is wall insulation from Havelock to which bat it's pretty easy it looks like to deal with I don't know I've never usually used wall but I did stop at a shop and I really enjoyed them pretty much what I'm gonna do is that right there how am I going to do it they don't like at Havelock they don't like using glues because they don't like anything off-gassing I'm probably just going to use the gorilla spray adhesive as well as I have some like sheathing taped to our tie back tape right here as well that I'll be able to take tape like a cross so you so there it is that's how it'll stay up so I'll put the tape from here to here go down that way and on they'll put the insulation across so that's pretty much all I'm gonna do that and this is just a grunt work time-consuming you know think [Music] so guys hey we are in the next morning now see I can't wanted to go over a few things while it's a little bit of peace and quiet so this is really how I'm doing my build now everybody's different but the complications of jumping around is because I this is complicated this is just how life is sometimes so I am doing my build mostly or predominantly at my father's house and my mother lives about 15 20 minutes away from there so I stay at my mom's for the most part I do the building of my dad's why do I do the back and forth there's a lot of people staying in my dad's house my mom has a separate room for me although that my dad probably does as well but my brothers come in to visit in town so he's got his wife and two children so it's going to be a full house over there and I didn't want to move into their leave and go back so it just made sense for me to stay here and have a roof over my head and you know have a bathroom and everything else while I'm doing this build this video is in particular about really the starting of the construction process yeah you can see right behind me that I have insulation in the walls and you can see like a framing or furring strips whatever you want to call them right here on this particular build this isn't a sprinter the pro masters I definitely suggest doing something like this with the sprinters you don't necessarily have to and I mean this as in firming strips because everything is on one plane in the van when I mean one plane it's on the pro masters you'll see the ribs the center rib and other ribs are all different depths in the sprinters everything is walling on one death I'm not sure about the transits just because I haven't really worked on the transits all that much I've only seen built-out transits this is how sprinters work I know how Pro masters work the reason I'm doing throwing strips is number one it depends on what your finished wall wants to be for example my finished wall is actually probably just gonna be a on the walls is going to be a quarter-inch plywood and I'm probably gonna paint it a flat white or a matte white I could actually just take that and attach it right to the metal wall the only reason I try not to do that is because I don't want to attach that directly to the metal for moisture purposes these will also create a thermal break thermal break you can google it it pretty much just separates the atmosphere from the outside to what its gonna be in the inside that's one of the reasons why you do a thermal break whatever other things what I've seen people do for the insulation purposes and the reason they like using these furring strips is they'll put insulation in like this or they'll even put like a rigid foam board right and then when they put their finished wall on this is a half inch frying strip I've seen people actually use a 3/4 inch four inch strip and then they'll put a half inch rigid foam board on your finished wall so when you stick it to the firt when you stick it to the first strip there's actually a gap of a quarter-inch hopefully you can do the math on that three quarter-inch furring strip and then a half-inch insulation on the on the finished wall and then it'll create a very small but useful air gap inside them now because this is a video on insulation and the beginning of the installment process I kind of wanted to go over a couple other installation ideas that a lot of people use I figured that might as well give out suggestions to other people out there and then you can take that the way that you want it so one of the things that I actually used in my last build which I still like a lot it's just kind of a pain to fit it into spaces like like down in here or like just it's a pain and that's rigid foam board you can get it in various sizes half inch inch inch and a half two inch insulation foot rigid foam board or poly iso is another term people use for it you want to get the one that has the foil on both sides of it that's like the highest density I actually use that on the floor for my insulation that's actually below the radiant heat and that's because you don't want anything coming up into the any cold air coming up into the pipe see I actually considered on using it on parts of the all parts of the build but after I met with I have Lough wool there's just no way that I'm not using wall it's amazing and I actually thoroughly enjoy it I'll go in if you haven't checked out that video and I'll put a link up in the card rigid foam board is one poly I so boring to call it don't use Pink Panther the it's it's fiberglass I beg you not to use the fiberglass insulation it's just not good it's it's cheap if you want to use cheaper insulation go ahead but it's cheap you probably insulate your entire van with foam board I have a 140 for my last one one one fifty nine inch wheelbase Promaster I think you can probably do it all for about two hundred bucks maybe 250 I'm doing this one I think the wool insulation they have like a van Life package I think is like 240 plus shipping let me see if I can get some wool the wool isn't bad and I can't really say any bad things about it you can play around with it you can rip it you can split it in half easy to cut with scissors again this is not like fiberglass and I can rub it on my skin it's on a problem this is real sheep wool from New Zealand the other insulation that people love to use is a closed closed cell spray foam I don't I have nothing bad to say for spray foam you just gotta prep the crap out of it because that stuff gets everywhere do you have to close off your cab you have to cover all your windows you can spray it it's fine they some people say it off gasses you take it as it is I that's fine whatever you want to do and just not a fan of it I just I don't know like it's it's honestly a pain to me do I like it's good like the really good quality spray is expensive so you're probably paying triple the amount and insulation that you would for like a wool or a foam board now I'm only gonna give those three as suggestions because those the only three that I would really be like cool with yeah all right fine so I will also mention people use insulate I'm not a like I'm not a fan of Thinsulate if you're gonna spend that money on insulation I'd rather you just go with the wool I don't know I just don't like it I don't I don't like the application of it I don't like I just like wool over in insulate that's all that is if you want to use to insulate go right ahead reflectix oh my god reflectix everybody seems to be using reflectix in their van bill oh and how much this disturbs me is not even funny all right so I'm not gonna go into crazy mess of details on why reflectix are not good or not useful in a van if you go on to the Home Depot website it will literally tell you in a PDF downloadable form that reflectix have to be used in a certain you have to use it properly and if it's not used properly the R value on reflectix is less than one so if you apply it straight to a metal so if you take your reflectix and everybody knows what the reflectix is is still it's like a silvery bubble wrap and you'll see pictures like this all over Instagram and probably on YouTube people make their their entire van look like a spacecraft you take these reflectix and if you touch the metal with the reflectix you can't see that if you touch the metal with the reflectix then guess what the r-value is nothing you actually touch reflectix to wood it's actually useless why do people use reflectance or how do you use reflectance you have to create an air gap with reflectix so I believe I have not looked into this too much because I just do not like reflectix technically when I put my finished wall on could I have the reflectix on the finished wall and have the gap between the furring strips and the wool insulation yes I could do that is it useful I don't think so by the way we're in a van metal shell on the outside air on the inside guess what there's going to be some sort of condensation now the only way that you're gonna have condensation inside or create condensation is pretty much either through your breath type of heater that you use my heater is a dry heat I'm not too worried about it but other people use propane and propane will cause moisture in the air so when that happens your walls will sweat wool insulation actually absorbs it and then also lets it out as well that is one of the main reasons why I'm going with wool not gonna send you a lot of literature on wool but I go I ask you to go check out Havelock wool and they have a ton of literature on why wool insulation is the best insulation lastly if you do go with wool and you contact Havelock well josh is the man by the way let them know that you saw my video and you're interested in the wool insulation I get zero kickbacks from that I just want a good product to the people that are watching this I am dead serious I do not get a kickback for you guys buying wool from Havelock do not get the mineral grade wool that's like that's not real wool this is actual sheep wool I still have a lot more work to do and I'll show you guys right now I still have the whole backdoor area of my van I still have to insulate this whole back doors that is right there okay now you see I'll show you what I have done right now yeah for the insulation that's already done which means I don't have that much left I still the sliding door left and everything but that is two bags worth of wool insulation I you do not need to stuff this into like yeah I'm gonna stuff it into crevices but you don't have to like stuff it to the point you can see right here I have I have this is a 1/2 inch bat now because I want a little bit more insulation I might put I might actually split this in half which I could just do like that and then put like another inch back here but you don't need to like stuff it with like 4 bats is what I'm saying you don't need like 8 inches of wall insulation the in this wall is actually supposed to be a little breathable because it wants moisture to capture and then release it I actually insulated over the wheel well which is where the water tank is so any cold air will not freeze my water tank it won't anyways because it's on a heated floor but you get the picture pretty much this video to recap pretty much was the insulation the start of the the framing system or furring strips however you want to call it and really the this is the most important stages but building a van is like it's like chess not checkers all right you have to plan 6 7 8 9 20 moves ahead and in checkers you just move you know as your opponent moves is you don't you don't really think about the next move you know what I mean it's kind of like that you have to think 10 12 steps ahead before you can even move forward so the first thing my dad came in when he came into my van he's like alright what are you using for finished walls and I was like what does that matter well I mean I didn't say that I'm just trying to give you guys a reference I was like I had the answers to the questions what are you using for the finish Wallace I want to use this and I wanna use this okay great how are we going to apply it we're gonna do it this way and this way great okay how are you gonna do the Murphy bed I don't know we gotta figure it out so it's like we didn't start framing all this out until we knew exactly what we were gonna do with the Murphy bed what we were going to do with my shower system how we were going to cap certain things so this part of the build is very crucial because it's not just insulation and framing it's planning planning planning planning you have to sit down and you have to plan biggest thing that I've coming up is a wiring diagram you've got to make sure that your wire diagram is it's not perfect but you have to have a wiring diagram what I mean by a wiring diagram is where the heck are all of your wires gonna be run I need to do that next and that is actually going to be probably one of my next videos because I need to also figure out how many outlets I'm gonna have how many USB outlets I'm gonna have if I'm gonna have a TV in here how that's gonna plug in which I am where my refrigerator is gonna be which I already know all the switches I have for everything I have an electron I have an electronic ball valve switch which will have them have the water flush out through an electronic ball valve I have a water pump switch you have you know I all these things you have your light switches how many lights you're gonna have are you gonna be daisy chaining these things so these are the things you have to plan out and this is the stage to do it just so you know all right so that'll all be in the next video but today I was just happy to get out the insulation and the start of the build hopefully you guys are asking yourself all these questions as well and hopefully you get answers either for me or from anybody else but hopefully you're getting what you need [Music]

Channel: Jarrod Tocci

Views: 63,175

Keywords: van conversion, van build, van life, van insulation, camper van, sprinter van conversion, sprinter van, sprinter van build, sprinter conversion, tiny house, van conversion ideas, diy van, how to do a van conversion, van conversion insulation, diy sprinter, van life build, diy van conversion, diy van build, jarrod tocci, ghost van build, van life insulation, stealth van conversion, stealth van build, stealth van, how to build a van into a tiny home

Id: 22V5P-GzqZ0

Length: 16min 26sec (986 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 12 2019