A warm coat - Insulation

In my mind it will take a day to do the insulation. After all, all I need to do is cut the batts into shape and pop them into the wall cavities.  Four days later I have the rear and side doors done and the side panels excepting the mid 'window' panel region. Why so long ?

• Home
  • Home
  • Cycling
  • Musings
  • Backcountry Skiing
  • Kiteboarding
  • Packraft Kayaking
  • Touring
  • Trekking
• Prev
• Next

Consider:

• Procurement -  3 hours depending on the number of trips to buy extra material.
• Removal of door trims - 3 hours
• Feeding material into confined beam sections
• Consideration of wiring and door opening apparatus.
• Cutting insulation batts to shape.

I looked at a variety of products and chose to use Earthwool.  The natural alternatives were hard to procure, and in order to make them insect and moisture proof it  meant they were no longer natural. Earthwool had good thermal and sound insulating properties as well as fire resistance. As far as environmental political correctness is concerned, it was made predominantly from recycled glass. 

Another good set of reasons was ease of use and cost. It works out to be $80 per 5 sqm for R-2.7 (purchased from Bunnings).  So far I have bought three bundles. The batts are 90 x 430 x 1160 and weigh 12.2 kg.  I chose R-2.7 to get the highest insulation and sound absorption that is practical.

 Looking at the lower third of the side wall you can see the intricate nature of it with the hollow beam sections and wheel arch as well as formed sections for the door and window ingresses. To ensure minimal heat transfer, the voids all had to filled  with insulation where possible.

A lot of  time was expended, cutting pieces to fit the gaps and feeding them in. As well, trims had to be removed. I had some special trim tools which were very useful for this exercise.

Skin scrape injuries occurred whilst trying to feed the insulation material into those many nooks. Care was taken to ensure cables for the door locks still operated freely and that the wires had a clear open space to ensure they do not overheat. (Insulated wires can melt their casing and cause a fire/smoke problem).

The ceiling and floor was not insulated with Earthwool. Instead I chose Bradford PolyAir.  This is a polyethylene roll with reflective foil. It relies on reflective properties rather than conductive resistance. I needed as much height as possible, so I thought I'd compromise with a lower R Value. (Height is 1810 with Polyair, if I use xps foam eg Foilboard, I would lose 30mm or more from the  height.).

---

Blog Indexes:

• Contents
• Main
  
• Index 2020
• Index 2022
• Navigate:
• Previous: The sounds of silence
• Next: Flooring
  

---

Loading previous adventure... Loading next adventure...