Hi,here is a question for you,how do I insulate my caravan?We are in Darwin and we find we have to run the aircon all day and half the night.I have heard of people using that silver backed stuff but how easy is it to take the sides off to get it in there??I would welcome any ideas,thanks in advance.
Hi,here is a question for you,how do I insulate my caravan?We are in Darwin and we find we have to run the aircon all day and half the night.I have heard of people using that silver backed stuff but how easy is it to take the sides off to get it in there??I would welcome any ideas,thanks in advance.
We used a thermal paint from British Paints, worked quite well but we were not in Darwin in summertime.
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Thanks JRH and Ma for the speedy reply,we thought about the paint idea,but feel we need more than that.Everyone here builds shelters over their vans,thats fine if you have a lazy $4000-$6000 lying around!
Not a direct answer I know, but have you considered rigging up a fly (tarp) to go over the top of the van? You would need to rig up some way to allow some airflow between the fly and the top of the van. May need to be a little inventive to work out how to do that! (sorry can't help).
-- Edited by jimricho on Sunday 11th of December 2011 06:28:25 PM
I have seen a Franklin with the side off in a repair shop, the wadding used in the wall for insulation was nothing more than the wadding we would use in a quilt and it was not fitted from frame to frame it looked more like a scrap of the stuff just glued in willy nilly. I bet ours is the same because it was cold inside in winter, I would like to think we have the real deal inside, you sure pay enough for them but I don't have much faith in it.
There is the silver stuff that looks like bubblewrap which is a lot more expensive than the stuff you're talking about which i think is called building wrap. The bubblewrap cpmprises on air pockets and silver on both sides. This might be good to utilise in a fly type arrangement as suggested. It sounds like a huge and expensive job to take off the walls and reinsulate.
When we were in Darwin the heat on the side of our van at the time (Jayco Hawk) was bad. We bought a big silver backed tarp the length of the exposed side of the van and rigged it so there was about 18" between the van and the tarp for airflow, as Jim indicated.
We threw the guy ropes over the top of the van and secured them on the other side with tent poles and pegs and on the tarp side with just the pegs.
I have to say it was a bit of a fiddle to start with but worked a treat mate.
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I saw a camper once, pulled 2 truck innertubes out of his boot and inflated them, put them on the roof of his van , then threw a big silver tarp over the top. He reckoned it kept the temp 15 degrees lower. Wouldn't work if you had a roof mounted aircon, I suppose.
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