While not the sexiest of topics, choosing the right insulation for your van (and your budget) is an important task.
Not only is the insulation going to make your life much more comfortable (or uncomfortable if you skimp!), but it is nearly impossible to go back and add this in later on in your build.
In addition to actual insulation, we’re also including window coverings (which are clutch!) in this category.
Total Cost: $524.38
What that money bought:
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$439.03 = 3 bags of wool insulation (+ shipping)
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$3.67 = Nylon anti-mold string
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$81.68 = DIY magnetic window coverings
We chose to go with wool insulation primarily because it is eco-friendly and means we won’t be breathing in toxins. Plus, wool is great at moisture control and it has sound dampening properties.
We spent a ton of time researching insulation options, and it was a no brainer to go with wool. We bought ours through Havelock Wool, the industry leader in van wool insulation. We bought 3 bags of Havelock Wool and this price includes shipping.
This number also includes the window coverings that Katie created using Reflectix, fabric and strong magnets. These coverings do a great job of keeping the van cool, but they were a bit time-consuming to make.
Cheaper option = $0+
When it comes to insulating a campervan, there are many options, but they are not all equal:
No Insulation: If you purchase an empty cargo van and need to install walls, you definitely won’t want to skip the insulation phase to save money… But, if you are converting a passenger vehicle, one option is to leave existing walls and insulation. While not the most attractive (or effective at controlling temperature!), this costs no money at all. This is what we chose to do for our first build, and it worked alright. That said, it wasn’t a good long term solution.
Recycled Denim: Perhaps one of the least expensive methods of insulation is using recycled denim. Depending on how you source the material, you could get it for free or very cheap. The kind of major downfall with using denim is that is does not do a good job of handling moisture, meaning you might have some mold and mildew problems to deal with in the future.
Polyisocyanurate (Polyiso) Foam Board: These boards are great at insulating with an R-Value of R-6, and they are easily manipulated by cutting the board to fit in the random spaces up against a van wall.
You do have to glue them in place because you don’t want any air pockets that could fill up with moisture and then seal the corners with expanding foam. For a van like Pearl, we would have needed 10x of the 4’x8’ boards, total costing about $210.
Eco-Note: A similar product to the Polyiso Board is Extruded Polystyrene Foam Board (XPS, or the big pink boards at Home Depot). XPS and Polyiso boards essentially serve the same purpose and are similar prices, but XPS does use a greenhouse gas (HFC’s) in the manufacturing process. If you want to be a little nicer to the Earth and still go the foam board route, we’d recommend looking into going with Polyiso Board.
Cost of insulation in our budget build: $0; We purchased a passenger vehicle and left the walls as is. We wouldn’t recommend this as a solution for long-term vanlife.
Worthy Upgrades
More Wool: To be honest, after going down the rabbit hole of insulation for more hours than we’d like to admit, we’re confident that sheep’s wool is kind of the best option there is, so there’s no need to upgrade, per se. That said, if you have a larger vehicle, you may need more wool than we used.
3M Thinsulate (vegan option): Alternatively, if you are vegan and do not want to use animal products in your build (like wool) but want a quality product, an alternative option that is pretty highly-regarded for van builds is 3M Thinsulate. It comes with a higher price tag than sheep’s wool and a lower R-value (which is essentially a measure of how well a material insulates). That said, like wool, it is non-toxic and it handles moisture pretty well.
Pre-made Window Coverings: As for window coverings, making your own can be quite time-intensive and requires a sewing machine. If you’d prefer to purchase these ready-made, it’ll certainly increase your budget, as they aren’t cheap.
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