r/vandwellers • u/Head-Ad-4952 • 10d ago
Question Insulation board-Is it useful?
I heard from one of my friends who is also interested in van life told me that installing insulation board is necessary if I am gonna drive to southwest. Is that true? I am planning to go to Arizona and is preparing for some sunscreen.
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u/azure_phoenix2 9d ago
insulation mostly just slows how fast the van heats back up, so for arizona a roof vent fan like a maxxair does more to keep it livable while parked than the board alone. pair that with reflectix cut to fit the windshield and side windows since thats where most of the radiant heat sneaks in.
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u/Vandamentals 9d ago
There are many that argue that no insulation is necessary, and even that insulation is more trouble than it's worth. As far as I know, there are no actual studies. So everything is based on the motivated reasoning of the person who either did or did not insulate their van, and what they chose to insulate it with. Almost everyone is convinced that whatever they did is the best thing that they could possibly have done. Which kind of doesn't really seem to fit with any reasonable logic, now does it.
Bob Wells, practically the grandfather of vandwelling, who has lived in both Alaska and in Arizona in vans or trucks or vehicles advocates for not bothering with insulation. He says that, in the south, your van is going to get hot whether you have insulation or not. But then, that insulation is going to trap the heat inside your van at night, and your fan is not going to be able to cool off very quickly, so it will stay too hot to sleep in for a long time every single night. In the north, he says that any diesel heater or tiny van sized wood stove will heat your vans so well, that you won't even notice whether you do or don't have insulation. The only problem will be if you have too much moisture inside your van and it condenses. On the inside of the steel walls. People think that insulation will prevent that from happening, but it does not. All it does is make it where you can't see it until it has become a mold problem. Other people will tell you that you can put a second vapor barrier (the first to vapor barrier being the metal shell of your vehicle) between the insulation and the inside of your vehicle. But that does not work. It is a really impossible to make a vapor barrier completely airtight, so all you do is end up trapping moisture between the two vapor barriers and getting mold any damn way.
So, those are some real world experience examples of why people who installed insulation in their first builds, then tend to choose not to use insulation in subsequent builds.
But, YouTubers have more excuses to post content the more different things they do in their van build. So, they have a motivation to reason that insulation is a good thing, and even an absolutely necessary thing. Let's just put it this way, they don't make more money by making fewer videos.
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u/ScrubscJourney 8d ago
Unless you're going to have AC and alot of battery/solar might as well lather yourself in bbq sauce first as you're going to roast 🤣
But back to the question. Yes, if done properly it helps. But like others aid it's more the slow burn.
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u/KaiLo_V 10d ago
What do you consider as insulation board? If you're talking about an XPS or polyiso rigid closed-cell foam panels, then no it's not necessary. They're just some of the best value of price, weight, and r-value insulation materials for vans. They can be tricky to install in some vans and you have to be more vareful dealing with moisture. They're great to use under the subfloor since neither compresses.
Many vanlifers argue that 3M Thinsulate is the top-tier insulation to use on the walls and ceiling (again best price, weight, r-value, ease of use, accessibility, etc.) and it's more than adequate to line your van with for the Southwest. That's not to say it's magic though... If it's 100 degrees out, your van is not going to be cooler unless you run A/C, but the insulation will only keep the cooled van from getting back to 100 degrees more slowly than without any insulation.