11/07/17
I’m going to be posting a lot for the next week or so as we work on the van, I’m going to try and give a step by step of what we're up to and the materials we're using, so you can understand the work going into it and also in case anyone doing something similar might read it and find it useful!
First things first, more animal pictures! I finally got a half decent photo of the cats, Newman, the dark grey one, and three-legged Kitten, the white and grey beauty. And a picture of Nora and Luna sunning themselves this morning thrown in for good measure. I honestly love these four, despite the poo and vomit and lack of alone time that comes with them, I’ll really miss them when we leave next week!
So yesterday we finished the insulation on the side panels and back door, the floor of the van had been finished the day before. For insulation we're using two materials, Earthwool and SilverWrap foil insulation. Earthwool is a wool-like material made from recycled glass, it is environmentally friendly and efficient, two big pluses for us. SilverWrap reflective foil insulation is a bit like tinfoil, it will help reduce and prevent the absorption of thermal heat, which let's be honest, in Australia, is a necessity. We did look at bubble foil insulation, as suggested by my Uncle Kev,who is an expert in all things construction, but the price compared to standard foil was astronomical, we wish we had the budget for it because it is great at dealing with condensation issues, which is a big problem for us, but hopefully our alternatives will work almost as well! We used the EarthWool in the side panels and back door, stuffing it to fill any gaps, before taping another layer on top using reflective foil tape (just like the foil but sticky). We used the foil to cover all surfaces, wheel arches, the entire floor, the side panels, and, we will use it on the roof too. We have some leftover foam from the previous insulation, that's stuck to the ceiling. We bought a can of recommended adhesive remover in an attempt to get it to budge, but it barely touched it. It's only a little bit and won't make a difference to how effective our insulation will be, so to save a lot of energy, time, and money, we’ve decided to leave it.
So that was yesterday, today's task was to get started on the wood pallets, taking them apart and sanding them. We were pushed for time today because Daniel started at work in Tamborine, an hour’s drive away, at 2pm, and doesn’t finish until late tonight, so we only had the morning to do as much as we could. The first task was to hose down the pallets, to get them clean, and to remove the spiders. When I carried the pallets over from next door, the neighbours had warned me not to get bitten by spiders, and there were several lurking in the pallets, so we weren't about to take chances. After that, we had to start taking the pallets apart, and all we were armed with was a hammer. We looked at a few videos online about how to take pallets apart without damaging the wood, most used an reciprocating saw but there were a few using hammers. So we tried the hammer method, multiple times, and we got nothing. No movement, no give, nothing to show for our hard work. So we made the decision to head back to Bunnings (like a B&Q warehouse, we practically live there at the moment)and purchase an reciprocating saw, and some safety goggles. It cost us $108 for the saw, battery, and charger, but we plan to sell it when we're done with it. By this time it was coming up to midday, and the saw had to charge for about an hour, we were a bit frustrated because we're aiming to make sure the van is liveable by the weekend. Liveable means we need to have done all the insulation, flooring, walls, bed frame, and have sourced a mattress. This is the bare minimum that needs to be done, in 4 days. I guess we like a challenge.
I also think it's important to note that our main goal is to be as thrifty as possible with this project. We only plan to have the van until our visas expire in May, and we are on a budget. As long as it is clean, sturdy and reliable, and it looks good, that's all we need. So we’re constantly making decisions and cutbacks that will save us money. For example, instead of doing the whole floor in wood, we're not going to do the section under the bed, that will be used just for storage, and will never be seen, instead we will just leave the existing black vinyl in place or a cheap alternative. And instead of lining the entire side of the van with wood panels, we will instead do up to where the top of the bed is, in order to save space as well as time. Decisions like this will save us a fortune, and a lot of time.
Tomorrow we plan to start taking the pallets apart, sanding, and varnishing, with an environmentally friendly, and cheap alternative to standard wood varnish. We also plan to start building the bed frame, for which we will use structural pine, bought from Bunnings, of course, as it's hard to source recyclable wood that can be used for structural building!
I will keep you posted, as always :)
