Following on from Part 2, the next step was to install some acoustic insulation.
I applied proprietary butyl rubber sound-deadening panels of 2.5 mm thickness, although self-adhesive butyl roofing tape is basically the same thing and might work out much cheaper if you're on a strict budget.
The van body panels were locally cleaned using methylated spirits, and the acoustic insulation was cut to basic shapes as required and then simply pressed onto the painted surfaces, using a cloth and a small paint roller to smooth them out and ensure a good contact.
These butyl sheets are quite heavy and add mass to the thin body panels to act as vibration dampers. Each insulation piece is fitted in the centre of every 'sub-panel', as are naturally formed between panel stiffeners and / or folds & creases in the metal. You don't need anywhere near 100% coverage to kill noise due to panel resonance - even a relatively small piece in the correct location will be effective.
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| acoustic insulation panels ... |
It was quite cold on the day I added the sound insulation, so I borrowed the oil-filled radiator from our conservatory and used it to pre-heat the van before fitting the butyl panels, to ensure good adhesion. After I'd fixed the insulation, I also left the radiator switched on during the following night.
During this first fix, I did the van body shell only - we'll also add the same acoustic material to the vehicle sliding and rear door panels at some future date, when the weather's warmer and we need to remove the door cards anyway to redecorate them.
For the van walls, I've bought a few rolls of thermal loft insulation material, made from recycled plastic and therefore non-irritating, i.e. you don't need to wear overalls, gloves, safety glasses and a mask during installation. However, there's a very hefty premium to pay compared to the usual glass-based insulation material - both materials have a similar 'R' value, but this plastic stuff works out at around £7.30 per square metre at 100 mm thick, whereas the rockwool is only around £2.00 for the same coverage.
The thermal insulation will also help to reduce noise transmission, as will flooring and soft furnishings when we eventually get around to them.
However, I haven't fitted any of the thermal insulation yet - it's easy enough to do piecemeal at any time and I'm not yet at the stage where I need to fix panels to the walls and permanently close off any spaces. And I still need to buy a few rolls of foil-type insulation for the shallower voids that will be formed between the van roof and the ceiling panels,
So now on to the shower tray ...
The shower room corner posts will be erected after installing the shower tray, to ensure a perfect fit of the tray in the cubicle. Therefore, the shower tray is required early in the build because it determines the fore-aft positions of everything on the RH side of the vehicle.
I bought a used shower tray from a Gumtree seller, dirt cheap at only £15, and it's a high-wall stone resin tray measuring 1,200x760x95 mm. It was very heavy, but it needed cutting down to size so that has taken some of the weight out of it.
The shower / toilet room is 1,200 x 650 mm at floor level and is located at the rear RH corner of the van. Our shower tray was cut to suit, firstly to reduce it's width and then also to profile it around the RH rear wheelarch.
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| cutting to width ... |
I used cutting and grinding discs in the angle grinder, and fine-tooth blades in two of my cordless powersaws, the jigsaw and sabre saw. Cutting with the saws was very slow, but it didn't ruin the blades as I thought it would - they were still sharp after the job was finished.
Parts of the profile were very tricky to measure and cut accurately, and it took the best part of an afternoon to fit it closely around the wheel arch, but I'm very pleased with the result.
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| profiled around wheel arch ... |
The intention at present is to seal the tray directly against the wheel arch and the shower room waterproof panelling. The wheel arch will remain exposed and has been painted with several coats of white Hammerite paint as further protection. If there's any future problem with this arrangement, it'll be a simple job to box-in the wheel arch with waterproof panelling, but I've gone for the simplest method for now.
I was also a little concerned about the resin stone construction of the shower tray, in that it's very rigid and therefore might tend to crack under any flexing of the vehicle floor, so I've installed a 3 mm neoprene rubber sheet under the tray which will hopefully act as a soft mounting. The tray will only be fixed down to the floor at the edges, using a silicone adhesive.
I've checked out the location of the waste hole of the shower tray, and it's above a vehicle floor section with no beams running directly underneath, although the area is generally enclosed & protected by the surrounding structure so that nothing of a relatively short length protruding through the floor could be wiped out by an impact during driving.
This means I can cut through the floor to insert a well into which a submersible pump will be mounted. In this way, the tray can be totally emptied by the pump - our greywater tank will be fitted inside the vehicle, i.e. above the shower tray waste level, and not underslung below the chassis as most people tend to do.
So gravity waste feed is not possible - that's why we went for a high-wall shower tray of sufficient volume that it can actually hold the contents of an entire shower. We can either wire the pump to a shower head flow valve so it comes on automatically, or just manually switch the pump on during or after showering to empty the tray. I prefer the latter solution, it minimises the amount of pointless instrumentation required to be fitted on the van.
We intend to fit duckboards in the shower room, so we're never actually setting foot on the base of the tray which might remain wet for a while after a shower. And the chemical toilet will also be located on this duckboard towards the rear end of the cubicle.
The drain pump well will probably be made from the body of a proprietary bottle trap and a screwed waste-pipe end cap. I've already bought a submersible pump to measure its length and exact diameter, and I had a wander around the plumbing aisles at B&Q yesterday to see what I could find from which to make a suitable well.
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| possible pump well ? |
This bottle trap idea is favourite at the minute but I might still come up with a different solution.
Next time, we'll look at mounting and installing the water tanks, and maybe also construct the framing for the shower / toilet room.
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