Should you Insulate your Camper Van? The Truth About Insulating a Camper Van - GOOD or BAD?

are you thinking about building out a van into a conversion for camping and traveling and you've been wondering whether or not you should insulate it stick with me and I'm going to talk about my thoughts and experiences with insulation and no insulation in a van [Music] you [Music] hey guys Bruce here would want to be free sitting here on a beautiful sunny morning at the Buckeye Regional Park in Arizona and this is going to be my last day here but I wanted to do one last video before I leave this location I've been thinking about doing a video on this insulation subject for quite some time and I'm finding to the point where I think I have enough information to give you that it could be useful to somebody so the subject is insulating your van whether to insulate or not to insulate what I'm speaking from is - van builds I've built a Ford e350 that was heavily insulated and then this current Ford Transit Connect that I have that I didn't do any insulation at all in and the perspectives and the experiences that I've had with both so with the ford e350 that was insulated when I built that van I was looking at YouTube videos and trying to figure out what to do and how to build it and all those sort of things and most people that I saw were always insulating the van so with a zero experience at that point in time I figured well I better insulate so I insulated that man I put poly iso on the floor the walls and the ceiling and I also had some fairly thick blackout curtains that insulated the windows and it would hold heat quite well it worked really good in the wintertime which I don't do a lot of winter camping but took very little to heat it and it held the heat substantially well considering that it was actually a vehicle but then when I took that ban to Arizona and or a couple of trips I made back to my home state of Colorado in the middle of the summer when it was a hundred degrees out the insulation does help kind of keep the heat out of the van to a point but then after a while the van will start to heat up and everything in the van will heat up just from that air circulating through the van the warm air that's from outside and then when the Sun Goes Down and it's time to go to bed or you're crawling in there to to sleep it took hours for the heat to dissipate and for the van to cool down so in that case the insulation wasn't really helpful it was more of a hindrance because it took so long to cool it back down and of course I'm talking about not using any air conditioning at all in either either situation I did have a fantastic fan roof vent in the e350 and it would help because I could turn it on and it could either pull the air out or blow air in and I had it blowing right on the bed so you could get some cooling from the from the air blowing on you and and had helped a bunch but I guess what you really need to think about when you're when you're building your van or if you're rebuilding a van or modifying it is where do you intend to use the van the most in the warm temperatures or in the cool temperatures of course in the cool temperatures I believe that insulating is well worth it it's more expense it's a lot of work and it's more more money to to insulate your van and in some cases depending on the van it can be quite difficult to figure out how to how to apply the insulation to where it's going to be effective what type of insulation to use and so on and so forth but a few other drawbacks of insulation if you're in a humid environment it will hold moisture and potentially lead you to mold issues if you spend a lot of time in your van in those more moist environments so when I got this Ford Transit Connect I was kind of in a rush to put it together so time was a factor and so was expense so I decided to go with a real simple build and all I did was build out of bed and install a solar panel and a battery for charging electronics and that sort of thing I did not put a vent in it and I also did not insulate anything it just has a regular stock factory headliner in it but the walls behind the front seats are just metal walls with no insulation and no no siding or anything in there and it's worked out really well for this particular road trip where I'm intend to spend most of my time in a warm environment I did just get done with the trip if you've seen in my past videos I spent a week up at 8,000 feet elevation in a National Forest in Arizona where it got fairly cold the got down to I think the lowest I saw on the thermometer was 34 degrees at nighttime and about 60 s in the daytime low 60s I do have a olympian wave3 heater that I just hang on the wall and it was worth its weight in gold up there what I would do is heat the van up for about 30 minutes to an hour just prior to crawling into bed shut the heater off and then sleep and of course by the time I woke up in the morning it was cold then I would reach over and turn the heater back on 30 minutes or so just to take the chill off and then crawl out of bed and get dressed and it worked out really nice when it was 34 degrees outside that Olympian heater on high setting which i think is 3000 BTU it was able to warm it up to about 68 degrees with no insulation but of course as soon as I shut it off it would cool back down so just some things to keep in mind but by that time you know the Sun was up and it was starting to warm up outside and it was it was fine down here where I'm currently at at the Buckeye Regional Park it's getting down to about 60 at nighttime maybe a little less 55 or 60 and daytime is about 80 80 85 of course with weather that nice I never intend to just sit in the van but with the way this Ford Transit Connect opens up the doors both side doors open and the back doors open I can keep it the same temperature inside the van that it is outside the van without a roof vent so I didn't have the expense in trouble and cutting a big hole on my roof which is not a big deal but I didn't have to go through that trouble with the way the doors open and everything on this van I'm able to keep it the same temperature that I would even if I had a fan I just if I was cooped up in the van the fan would be nice because I would have that airflow but I did buy a small 12-volt fan that I use haven't used it very much but I can I can get the same thing the effect of the wind blowing on me from the fan if I need to if I have to be cooped up inside and that was only I don't know 10 or 15 bucks at a local story to pick them up anywhere that sells Auto fans and that was real quick and easy it just plugs in with a cigarette lighter type plug-in into your battery bank and and I can run that fan it takes a half a watt I can run it all day long and all night long without really hardly even hurting my battery power I did in this particular van again if if you have seen my past videos if not you can go back and look and see how I did it but I used reflex it reflectix to cover all of the exterior window or the the rear windows in this van and I think that that helps quite a bit help control the heat so I don't have sun shining through a window also I have that awning that I made that covers the entry door the sliding entry door and if you use it right and you Park the van properly what it what it mainly does is keeps the Sun from shining in there on your interior of your van and keeps things from warming up from the Sun will also help you control the heat and that's really important if you have a 12-volt refrigerator or a cooler or something like that you don't want that Sun to be shining on that item and heating it up so keep it back in the shade and out of the Sun and your ice will last longer and you'll use less battery power if you're using a 12-volt compressor refrigerator like I am so far so good on this particular build and and I'm not regretting not insulating I've had several comments of people asking me well why didn't you insulate and this hopefully this video will help answer those questions but one thing that I really have noticed with no insulation with this particular van is that when I get ready to go to bed after the Sun Goes Down it cools off quite rapidly in the van and an hour after the Sun Goes Down it's it's cooled off to the point where I can crawl into bed and and sleep comfortably so I guess the the the answer to the question of the title of this video is should I insulate or not really depends upon how you intend to use your van and what environment do you plan on spending most of your time in hopefully this video will help you guys out if you're pondering that question whether to insulate or not and I don't think that that answer is going to be the same for any one person there's probably as many different opinions on this subject as there are people out there that are traveling and living in their vans so another fantastic day as I said before I'm going to be packing it up here shortly and head back to Phoenix to spend Thanksgiving with the family I hope you're all doing well out there and enjoying everyday as I am and I will catch you guys on the next one [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: WannaBFree

Views: 19,415

Keywords: The Truth About Insulating a Van, insulating a van, camper van insulation, camper van insulation options, camper van insulation guide, van life, van conversion, vanlife, living the van life, #vanlife, insulating a camper van, insulating a camper van conversion, insulating a van with reflectix, van insulation, van build, camper van conversion, ford transit connect, should you insulate your van, should you insulate your camper van, is camper van insulation good or bad

Id: p0nNY4y0eXc

Length: 12min 29sec (749 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 22 2017