There are many reasons to insualate a cargo van that will end up being a camper van.  It will keep us warm on the cold, frosty night.  It will prevent overheating on those sweltering hot days.  It will reduce condensation, and it is also a great sound barrier.  Read on to see the insulation installed on our 2021 Ford Transit.

Floor

We used this 1-inch foam board (IKO Polyisocyanurate Insulated Sheathing (1-in x 4-ft x 8-ft) from Lowe’s), which has an R value of 6. It’s designed to reduce energy loss and controls sound as well. We cut large strips and laid them all between the frame on the floor. As well, before we laid down the final flooring, we added this cork floor underlaynment.

Walls

The Ford Transit has large wall cavities, so we thought that Rockwool would be good for this job. (Rockwool Comfortbatt R14 24 inch O.C. For 2×4 Wood Studs from Home Depot) It has an R value of 14. We used the large cavities to push it up and down to all the hollow spots that we could reach. We found this roll of cork, also on FB marketplace, cut it up, and covered all the exposed rockwool with it. Finally, we covered it all up with Reflectix Bubble Pack from Home Depot. As you can see, we have a lot of exposed area at all the windows. We plan to make insulated covers to cover those up for when it’s too hot, or too cold.

Ceiling

Our ceiling got the same foam board insulation as the floor did. We cut it to fit snugly between the existing beams and taped it up there with tuck tape.  We then covered it all up with Reflectix, making sure to pull through all the wiring we ran for lights and other switches.

Headliner

There’s a large hollow area above the headliner shelf in the Transit. We cut a piece of Reflectix that fit inside there, pulled out the Rockwool that we had left over from the walls, and cut up enough to cover up the reflectix. Then Alex closed it all up in this heavy plastic sheet, taped it up and slipped it down behind the headliner.

Back Doors

Like the walls inside the van, we filled up the cavities with Rockwool. We still had some cork left, so we used that up too.

Watch our video to see how we did it:

Thanks for visiting our site!  Check our Van Build Journal page often as we’ll documenting the progress of the build.

Yours Truly …. Yula

Before getting the van, and starting the build, we had always thought we’d made a bed that folds up to have a couch in the van.  But as we started building we changed our minds and proceeded to build a fixed bed.  Here’s how we built the fixed bed platform in our 2021 Ford Transit van:

The main purchase we made for this project is this comfortable queen sized memory foam mattress from Costco.

Other supplies we used:

• Steel corner beams (Home Depot)
• Tremclad rust proof paint (Home Depot)
• Plastic mesh fencing (Home Depot)

We made 2 of these structures, one for each end of the van, and secured them using Plusnuts and bolts.

We opted to add 6 2×2 beams across, to support our mattress. For added strength, we added these metal corners to each beam. So we cut 6 of them to size, filed them, painted them with rust proof paint and attached them to the 2×2’s.

And here it is with the mattress. We had to cut 3” off the end to make it fit snugly from end to end, and also cut a couple of corner to fit the weird shape of the Transit.

Thanks for visiting our site!  Check our Van Build Journal page often as we’ll documenting the progress of the build.

Yours Truly …. Yula