Alright Men & Ladies I'm currently giving my interior a few coats of rustoleum, and once I've completed this task I'll be looking for some sound proofing/insulation to go under my ply floor and on the rear arches and slopey bit. I'm running on a budget so I can't stretch to noise killer kind of prices, and having spent a day removing tar and bitumen from the flashing I used before on the arches I don't want to revisit that again on shiny paint. Any ideas however creative will be most welcome.
You could use some wood flooring underlay. Wickes do a polystyrene one with a damp proofing thermal foil layer about 20 For the side panels you could use a roll of the bubble type loft insulation.
This is what VW used on the front panel, that stuff you used to get (still can?) for going behind wall paper?
Cheers dude I'm going to use therma wrap in the side panels, I've already used it to good effect in the roof. I'm just looking at the floor and arches. I'll look into the wickes stuff. Any more people
Use the roll up sleeping mats from a camping shop thay are about 15mm thick and made from closed cell foam so are unaffected by moisture ,about 2m x 0.6m and cost about a fiver each
Can I put the cat amongst the pigeons regarding thermal insulation?! While I wait for an answer to that... Heat will escape one way or another, I have a tin top with the original headliner; heats going out that way and there ain't no way of stopping it! The windows will also let heat out and all the basic seals, hollow metal channels, under the front seats, behind the dash... And so on. With my construction hat on, (cos thats my background) you design a house to modern standards with as close to an unbroken line of insulation as possible to avoid "cold bridges" and I think this would be impossible in a van. There is the placebo affect of knowinh theres some thermal insulation and thinking its warm I suppose, but now I've said it, you'll all be wondering if its really warmer or not?! Sound insulation is a different matter! Again, in construction you have to balance layers of high density heavy material with separation layers and air gaps. If you want to avoid the vibration and road noises then the loft roll and underfloor foam is also going to be chocolate tea pot territory. The noise killer stuff does this by being super dense and notably it is stuck to the metal to take out the resonance. The ply floor and furniture would also help with this, but this ain't going to help elsewhere. Your probably now thinking the same thing that I am... Do I really have to sticky Marmite to my nicely painted floor?!
Tbh I'm looking more for a bit of both but lean toward soundproofing more, my van is loud anyway cos I've got a stainless exhaust and I do actually love the way air cooled engines sound just want to lose a bit of vibration and road noise. I know when I've got the floor, bed and furniture in it will deaden quite a bit of sound, I know this cos the van now it's all striped out sounds about 4x louder than before I agree almost with everything you've put Andy, I too have a tintop but what I will say is about 2 years ago I striped out the original ply board head lining, put up thermawrap and then put in birch ply head lining. I'm not saying its made the van warmer but it has definitely worked the other way by cutting down the heat transferred into the van via the hot tin roof in the summer As for using sticky stuff on new paint Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Insulation does work as you are slowing down the rate of heat loss in a large proportion of the total area. If you are cold and put a jumper on you warm up including your legs even through you have only put a jumper on
I have used some cellotex style stuff under the wood, got it from b&q about 18 quid for a pack, its 5mm thick and foil backed, I doubled it up to make 10mm thick and cut it to size, its the stuff you use under laminate flooring
Cheers fella Its just the right thickness when doubled up to fit perfectly under the ply when it sits on the edge of the cargo bay, just need to cut it. I pack will do the floor, got another to insulate the sides behind the panels, Easy to work with too, crust with scissors or Stanley knife
if you want to take the 'ring' out of the panels the only way to do it is to stick some thick stuff to them, i.e. sound deadening. you only have to cover 20-40% of the panels to do this (in the middle). think of how when you tap a biscuit tin lid it sounds 'tinny' - if you glue some felt to the inside middle it takes out the resonance. some people cover their whole vehicle in this stuff and its a waste of time, money and makes the car heavier! for sound insulation the camping mats are fine and shop around and you can pick them up v cheap. these will also provide some thermal insulation. open cell foam *is* better for sound insulation but will hold moisture - closed cell foam not great but won't hold moisture. be careful though as cut closed cell will still hold moisture around the raw edges so seal these with some tape. for true sound proofing you need to; 1) deaden the resonance of each panel 20 -40% - bitumen type stuff and it needs to be rollered on to ensure full contact and adhesion 2) layer of open cell foam covering every panel 3) layer of MLV (mass loaded vinyl) which is heavy as hell. if your going to go to this trouble you'll need one hell of a sound system and an some sort of ocd. probably
Nice in depth explanation there Erm I've used bitumen before on the inside of panels etc and also on the rear arches and slopey bit but as it has fresh paint I am loathed to use it on the shiny bits. I will however use it on the inside panels I haven't done already and I like the idea of the closed cell stuff under the ply.
I didn't use bitumen but paid a lot more for the silent coat stuff. I only used it on floor and side panels which will be covered as most upper panels are double skinned so there'd be no point. I then used a self adhesives closed cell on top which had a reflective surface - again, spent more than I needed to. On the flat horizontal surfaces I figured that the flooring and bed would do the job of mlv!
Why would you not want to stick on the new paint ? I I understand you would be pleased with the work you have done but are you planning to remove the insulation to admire the paint or carry out some major modifications meaning you need to take the insulation off ? Not fitting correctly would likely compromise any effect you are looking for. Just a thought
I picked up a roll of closed cell foam laminate flooring insulation at Homebase. Used it as a sandwich layer between my 2 sheets of ply and also up the back panel. Good stuff and pretty cheap:
Lofty mate if you saw the state of my van you would understand my reasoning ... The floor and rear deck bit are the only part of my van with new paint at the mo. as the floor will be covered by ply, it will be nice to lift up my rear seat and see shiny paint
