So in my COVID lockdown time, I lost my mind and decided to insulate my new build (2019 170 4x4 2500) with an aerogel product (Spaceloft) as my contribution to the cannon of sprinter conversions. The remainder of the build was fairly standard stuff so I'll stick to describing the insulation.
Why, you ask? Well I planned on using wool batting for my insulation (because of its thermal and sound-deadening properties), and I noticed that with 2" wool batting there was about 1/2" of airspace left over in most of the bays in the vehicle. Spaceloft comes in a 10mm (0.39") thickness which provides an extra R value of 4-ish to the wool's R7 and perfectly fits in this extra airspace.
Aerogels are mostly air by volume and come from space-shuttle technology, and Spaceloft is essentially an aerogel-impregnated fiberglass mat. It's hydrophobic but vapor-permeable and useful for energy-efficient home building. Plus with the COVID lockdown, I had the time, and I certainly needed it because this is a *very* time-consuming process. I also used Lizard Skin ceramic insulation and Hushmat over nearly the entire van, including underneath the front seats, which was another significant time-suck. This level of insulation is probably overkill/diminishing returns, but hey, I was bored and aiming for the quietest, most insulated van I could possibly achieve. Would I do it again? At gunpoint, maybe...
So the walls, ceiling, and doors are like this:
1) Lizard Skin (both SC and IC)
2) Hushmat sound deadening mat
3) 10mm Tyvek-wrapped Spaceloft
4) 2" Havelock wool insulation
5) paneling
Some idiosyncrasies of Spaceloft:
-Fairly easy to work with, except it's very dusty and therefore needs to be wrapped in something. I chose Tyvek because it is vapor-permeable, cheap, and also easy to work with.
-Time consuming: each bay required measuring and cutting the Spaceloft and Tyvek, wrapping the Spaceloft into a Tyvek sandwich with DAP Weldwood upholstery glue (or alternatively taped into a sandwich with Tyvek tape) using a pneumatic paint sprayer, and gluing the sandwich to the inside of each bay.
-Expensive. The Spaceloft alone for a 170 WB sprinter will set you back about $3000.
Various photos attached. Discuss!
Why, you ask? Well I planned on using wool batting for my insulation (because of its thermal and sound-deadening properties), and I noticed that with 2" wool batting there was about 1/2" of airspace left over in most of the bays in the vehicle. Spaceloft comes in a 10mm (0.39") thickness which provides an extra R value of 4-ish to the wool's R7 and perfectly fits in this extra airspace.
Aerogels are mostly air by volume and come from space-shuttle technology, and Spaceloft is essentially an aerogel-impregnated fiberglass mat. It's hydrophobic but vapor-permeable and useful for energy-efficient home building. Plus with the COVID lockdown, I had the time, and I certainly needed it because this is a *very* time-consuming process. I also used Lizard Skin ceramic insulation and Hushmat over nearly the entire van, including underneath the front seats, which was another significant time-suck. This level of insulation is probably overkill/diminishing returns, but hey, I was bored and aiming for the quietest, most insulated van I could possibly achieve. Would I do it again? At gunpoint, maybe...
So the walls, ceiling, and doors are like this:
1) Lizard Skin (both SC and IC)
2) Hushmat sound deadening mat
3) 10mm Tyvek-wrapped Spaceloft
4) 2" Havelock wool insulation
5) paneling
Some idiosyncrasies of Spaceloft:
-Fairly easy to work with, except it's very dusty and therefore needs to be wrapped in something. I chose Tyvek because it is vapor-permeable, cheap, and also easy to work with.
-Time consuming: each bay required measuring and cutting the Spaceloft and Tyvek, wrapping the Spaceloft into a Tyvek sandwich with DAP Weldwood upholstery glue (or alternatively taped into a sandwich with Tyvek tape) using a pneumatic paint sprayer, and gluing the sandwich to the inside of each bay.
-Expensive. The Spaceloft alone for a 170 WB sprinter will set you back about $3000.
Various photos attached. Discuss!
Attachments
-
328.8 KB Views: 435
-
475.1 KB Views: 437
-
254.5 KB Views: 425
-
395.9 KB Views: 413
-
384.6 KB Views: 403