Insulating the van and snow.

Greetings fellow spirits on this grand adventure called, 'Life'.

     These are photo's, and two videos on insulating our van which we have lovingly called, 'Woody'.  First off we did buy heavy R value insulation and made sure that there was no formaldehyde in it. The R value is a way of rating how good it is at keeping the cold out or in. We went with the biggest we could afford.

     The foam board stuff was two inches thick (I think) and easy to cut and shape, but be aware it makes a nasty squeaky sound and a hell of a mess as you'll see. I found it difficult to measure all of the shapes in our van and struggled to remember what Mrs. Kleppe, my 7th grade math teacher, taught me about measuring arches. In the end I just kept cutting and shoving pieces into the hole till it was filled not very clever or interesting to see. If you're interested this is the formula for measuring an arch. (ie the wheel well)
The radius of the arch is the radius of it's finished circle which it is a part. R = H/2 + W(small2)/8H Yes, I agree with you. I'll just skip over that and stuff that hole with parts of insulation till it's full, or you could always go here and plug your numbers in. Height and Width.
  Link to carpentry website.

From that point I took out the fiberglass stuff and started cramming it into every little crevice I could find. I reminded myself of a bird preparing a nest for a hoped for lady-friend and babies.

Stuffing it in.

I wore gloves, a breathing mask, glasses and covered all of my skin just like they tell you to.
Using a straight edge, a measuring tape, and my Swiss Army knife I did all of the cutting for everything. I'm pretty sure I'll need to sharpen that knife now.

Straight edge, Swiss Army Knife, and the dreaded insulation.

We have a 2001 Chevy Express 1500 with two TV's and a big sub speaker in the back. I took the TV's out and am keeping the speaker if I can. The TV's were mounted to a smallish black plastic square which is stuck to the ceiling. I tried to take it out but the bolts were stripped so I thought I'd cut it out with my rotary tool. Here it is before and after.

Mounting square for the TV before cutting it.

After

As you can see I was not successful in cutting it off. That cut goes all the way through, but it still wouldn't move. Yes, I even tried to break it. Cut through like that it still held my weight.

Gave up and cut around it.

Here you can see I just went around the whole thing. I hate being beat by a plastic square.

The best I could do.

You know when you look at other peoples insulation it looks so sweet and nice. Everything fits just right, and they don't have any duct tape holding it in. I totally thought this would be the easiest part, and it turned out not to be. Oh well. Next is the wiring. Here's the final video of the insulation.
We wish you all the best in everything you do.

Peace, Love, and Doritto's
The Marty's