There were a couple options I had when it came down to what to do with the ceiling. The first option was to renovate it back to its original form, like I’m doing with the cab. To do this, however, it was going to cost a few hundred dollars, minimum. It also limited what I could do for insulation.
The second option, and the one you’ll see play out in the rest of todays blog, was to clad it with wood. The more I explored van lifers builds, the more I fell in love with the look of a wood-clad ceiling. This gave me more flexibility with insulation and also gave it a much cozier feel. For LuLu’s ceiling, I’m using cedar tongue-and-groove in 8 foot sections. It will help keep the bugs away, smell great, and look really nice. I’m not building lights into the ceiling, but this option also allows you the ability to easily install lighting.
Make sure to check out last weeks blog to see what prep-work went in prior to putting up the ceiling.
Attachment Points
How you attach the wood to your ceiling is going to depend a lot on your individual rig. I’m trying to limit the amount of drilling into LuLu as much as possible, in the event I ever decide to renovate her as a classic or rebuild her living space.
There are two cross-braces that I could use to drill the wood plants into. Thankfully, I found a really helpful video on YouTube to help me avoid this! This person cut individual pieces of wood to serve as an anchor point for each board. They used construction level adhesive to attach these blocks to the ceiling, and then drilled directly into the blocks.
So that’s exactly what I did! The depth of the cross-braces is about 1 1/4 inches, so I cut 1 1/2 inch blocks to allow for full clearance of the braces. I cut these out of 2×2 so my finished block was 1.5×1.5×1.5. To prevent sagging, I followed the lay-out of the rear cabin. There’s a brace at the front, a brace in the middle, and a brace at the end.
To place the blocks, I measured and marked the center of the ceiling. Then, I measured 3.5″ spaces and marked those along both sides. (3.5″ is the width of the tongue-and-groove I used, so you’ll want to use that measurement). Using Gorilla Glue Ultimate Construction Adhesive, I put a zigzag of adhesive and then placed these blocks at each of the points I marked. I held them in place for a few seconds but the grab was really good. Cure time was 24 hours.
Insulation
Insulation is a hot topic when it comes to building your rig. Synthetic options like Reflectix are an expensive, but high quality option. Sheep’s wool is an all-natural option. Then there are a million options in between. Originally, I wanted to insulate LuLu really, really well. I was fortunate to come into a ton of sheep’s wool insulation for super cheap. It was the perfect option for the ceiling.
With further research, I decided that because I wouldn’t be cooling the bus with AC, my insulation would keep the van from cooling down once it got hot. So instead of sheep’s wool, I decided to opt for something that would reflect heat back out instead of letting it absorb into the living space. Reflectix was my original option. I came into something similar for much cheaper (and also free), so that’s what I decided to use for the ceiling instead.
3m spray adhesive came highly recommended across several rig builds. I decided that’s what I would use to tack up the insulation. I used 3m hi-strength 90 contact adhesive. Follow the instructions on the can. I sprayed three light layers on the ceiling and one light layer on the insulation. Then, I put the insulation into place. It worked like a charm! I was working in pretty warm weather and the time from spray to tacky was pretty quick. Overall – I highly recommend this adhesive!
The cross braces of the rear cabin will be covered, so I used aluminum tape on the edges to reinforce the hold. I also used metal tape on all raw edges of the insulation. Before you put up any insulation, make sure to consider how you’re going to attach the wood to the metal ceiling. This will prevent you from having to back track and redo it!
Now, with the walls painted, the anchors up, and the insulation in place, all that’s left to do is put up the ceiling and screw it in! Thankfully, I have another set of hands to help me. Next week, I’ll show you the final product, and if you don’t have a second set of hands, I’ll even share with you how to make it happen all by yourself.
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