Insulation continues...

Deciding on the insulation has been a fits-and-starts event with a lot of Google-ing: What's environmentally friendly?  What will help keep the van cool//warm?  What won't cause undue condensation and the dreaded lurgy of rust?  What is semi-affordable?  What won't add too much weight or thickness to the walls or ceiling? Yeesh.  In the end, you just have to click, "add to my cart" and hope for the best.  After getting the Ultra-Touch, we had some doubts that it was the best product to use, but sending it back cost about the same as the product itself, so we used it.

Ultra-touch

Boards hold the ceiling insulation in place until the glue sets

Here's what we've done so far.  The interior floor to ceiling height is important to us, because we have the low-roofed Promaster, so we did not treat the floor the same as the walls and ceiling.  We glued Ultra-Touch--the thin, blue-ish stuff backed with aluminum foil, pictured on the left above to the walls and the floor.  Its main purpose is sound-deadening, but it adds some R-value too.  It is sold for engine compartments and other vehicle applications.  After gluing the Ultra-Touch to the metal, the cotton layer made us extremely nervous, because cotton takes on water like a sinking ship.  To attempt to mitigate moisture accumulating in the cotton layer, we sealed all the raw edges against the van's metal with aluminum tape, reasoning that the aluminum backing plus the aluminum tape would create a moisture barrier--hopefully sealing moisture out, rather than trapping it in.  Time will tell.

Rigid Foam Insulation

The next layer of insulation  is Rmax Polyisocynurate...a name that doesn't roll off the tongue.  It is an extruded closed cell foam that claims to be environmentally friendly with no discernible impact on global warming....really?  It is a ridged board that comes in 4-foot by 8-foot sheets, and is also aluminum backed.  This is the layer that will be behind the finished wall boards.

The Floor--a Different Story

On the floor, we only put down the Ultra-Touch, and topped it with quarter inch plywood.  Again, we are trying to keep the maximum height, ceiling to floor.  We now plan to top the plywood with a foam matting material that is similar to yoga mats.  It will be cushiony underfoot, easy to clean--at least easier to clean than carpet, and add a bit of insulation too.  Some of the Amazon reviews say it holds up well.  Again, time will tell.

Information, not Endorsements

I've provided  links to retailers of products we have used, rather than to the manufacturers, because the retailers generally have more information about the products, and include customer reviews.  I'm by no means endorsing any of the retailers...or the products for that matter.