The Floor

Say the word insulation and I may very well take off running in the opposite direction.

The flooring was supposed to be an easy step. (I feel like this may be a new running theme throughout this build). We need to frame out the bottom with furring strips, fill with insulation and lay the subflooring. Easy.

What type of insulation? I feel like I have been drowning in the sheer amount of information regarding insulation and vanlife. There’s rockwool, thinsulate, spray foam, reflectix, xps board, the other rigid board kind, sheep wool and, omg, I want to pull my hair out.

Found out you also have to be concerned about mold buildup in RV’s and vans. Didn’t know that, so let’s add that to the list. And don’t blow your budget.

Too much, yes? Welcome to my life now.

After much discussion and a few beers, we decided for the floors we would prime with mold resistant Kilz and utilize XPS boards for insulation. If needed, we could add some spray foam around the gaps.

Sunday morning we lazed around for a bit to reset our engines for the day of hole plugging and priming. After a good homemade brunch and plenty of coffee we set up at the shop with our beer, beach chairs, radio and a Leinie Trail Dog supervisor.

Jake started plugging holes in the floor with sealing tape and I got to it with priming. I learned very fast that the cheap roller that came with my paint tray was useless on metal. Not that it would have been that beneficial with all the dips and divots in the sub. So paintbrush it was and I had my trusty ol’ 2in angle brush with the comfort grip. Beer cracked and cold. Put me in coach, I’m ready to play today.

While some find painting tedious or down right horrible, I enjoy it, alot. I zone out and find it peaceful. There are a few things I’m rather decent at in life and cutting in without tape is one of those, thank you very much. It took almost the entire day. Jake jumped in close to the end to help speed up the process. Keep in mind, primer is not paint. It is not meant to be pretty and most of the time it’s downright ugly. But I am rather proud of this job, if I do say so myself.

That night I was woken up at 2am with a screaming claw hand of death from paintbrush painting for six hours. Aspirin and a cold pack allowed me to fall back asleep but that was a new experience for me.

Monday we hit it hard with the framing. Our furring strips would sit in the low grooves of the floor but as most things that require power tools, our floor was not flat or level. It wasn’t even close.

While Jake concentrated and cursed that the full length furring strips were not staying adhered to the floor, I attempted to cut our cross framing pieces. If you know the two of us, you’ve probably heard about the chicken coop story. Long story short, I apparently don’t hammer the right way. I fail to see how one can hammer incorrectly, but I am not the expert. You can probably see how this was a very risky move to attempt cutting our strips.

The verdict, I don’t cut the right way either but the pieces were close enough and the time limit narrowing fast enough that Jake accepted my cuttings.

Jake continued the framing during the week and on Friday I joined again after work. Some last furring strips were cut and glued.

Jake began on the XPS board and spray foam filler. I traced the cardboard outline he had made earlier on our plywood subflooring.

Being bold, I said I could start the cut with the new miter saw. I could see the panic at my cutting ability and the closing window of light playing out in his eyes. Either he was drunk or starting to trust my construction abilities because he gave in and let me miter cut the board. (I’m so full of proper construction terms).

Correction: Jake has informed me it was a jig saw, not a miter saw.

Well, it was a learning curve, but I didn’t cut into the outline and stayed on the lines, which is a step above my coloring skills. We were quickly running out of usable light and Jake decided to place our first cut piece of subflooring in, adhesive and all without fitting it first. He must have been drunk, even I didn’t trust my cutting skills to cut it right to size on the first go. But in it went, with a few bends and bumps with the mallet. And wouldn’t you know, it fit.

Fast forward a couple days, we were heading out to catch the ferry to Catalina Island and made a pit stop to check out the subfloor.

Yep, that happened. Lesson learned: do not go hog wild with spray foam, you will regret it.

Jake powered through re-gutting, re-framing, re-insulating, and re-installing the subfloor over the next couple days.

I joined after work on Friday to miter saw jig saw the second subfloor board. It fit even better than the first board. Jig saw queen over here.

Another trip to Big Orange and Jake had the last piece installed the next morning. There was sweat, there was metaphorical tears, there was def some blood from scraped knuckles but our floor was in.