Insulating for year round living

[Penelope74]

Hello all,
This is my first post!
My partner and I recently bought a 1974, 31' Sovereign Landyacht.
We are renovating it to be our year round home.
We have reached the crossroads of deciding whether we are or are not redoing the 40 year old insulation. If so, how much, where, and with what products.

We are intending to install a small wood stove for heat.

We have a tear in the rear belly panel that we can either patch or use as motivation for removing the entire underbelly and relaying insulation.
We're thinking rigid foam.
It'll be a lot of effort to redo the whole belly, so we'd like the weighty opinion of some of you before trying it out.

Our first question is: Have you replaced the belly insulation? How significantly did this improve the trailers over all insulation?

Our second question regards the trailer walls and ceiling.
We do not want to remove wall panels.
Spray in insulation is our best plan so far.

Who has sprayed in insulation without removing walls or the entire center ceiling panel? How did you work around the "perlins" and "ribs"? How did you access the the wall cavity?


Thank you very, very much.

[J. Morgan]

The walls already have fiberglass insulation so spraying in foam without removing it would be way problematic. While the fiberglass would compress to a degree, there is no way foam could be sprayed in evenly with the fiberglass in the way.

On my trailer, with new fiberglass put in the walls, and wood over the interior walls, the floor is for sure the area of greatest heat transfer.

I have not addressed this area yet, but many folks do seem to like rigid foam here.

FWIW, where I looked at my underfloor insulation it was mostly in good shape, as was the stuff I took out of the walls.


1/2 Ton 4WD Truck, 72 Sovereign Hensley Arrow

[idroba]

No matter what you do, you are not going to change the insulation value of the walls very much, they are only 2" thick. The only way to re insulate them would be complete interior panel removal, which would mean complete interior removal. The fiberglass insulation that is original is about as good an R value as you will have with anything.

The single pane windows are not going to change.

The floor insulation is marginal, especially on an old unit, as the fiberglass becomes rodent eaten and wet. However, re insulating the floor is another difficult job, either requiring removal of the belly pan, or removal of the floor of the trailer.

Have fun.

[J. Morgan]

The windows can be made (much) better by using the silver bubble wrap insulation cut to fit the windows placed inside of the glass.

And I know this is a big stretch for most people, but the wood I placed over the interior walls in my 72 helps a lot when compared to the bare walls in my 75.

Last winter I was able to easily keep the trailer quite warm with a single electric space heater while in Lubbock in sustained low teen temperatures.




1/2 Ton 4WD Truck, 72 Sovereign Hensley Arrow

[Penelope74]

Thanks for the thoughts. We appreciate all input!

To clarify, we are wondering about spraying in fiberglass insulation, not spray foam. We know we'd pop the walls if we used foam.

Knowing that the incase in R-value would be minimal, I am still curious if anyone has tried this method on their airstream?

Also, more and varied inputs on the floor insulation are welcome as we are on the cusp of making a decision and weighing our options heavily.


Thank you all!

[lletteney]

We added foam to our 1964 Globetrotter. We purchased 25 cans of Great Stuff large gap filler. We removed all switch pates and light fixtures and sprayed foam in the openings to the gap in the walls. Then we drilled holes inside the cabinets ,sprayed the cans of foam and plugged the holes with automotive plastic plugs purchased from our hardware store. When you spray the foam, the inner skin cools and you can tell where the foam went inside the wall. We did the ceiling and upper walls. It would take another 25 cans to do the lower walls.
Probably rigid foam would work well under the floor.
Larry

[Bill M.]

If it gets substantially below freezing you are going to need to run the furnace to keep the plumbing from freezing. So one of the big propane tanks that you see at the trailers people are living in will probably be necessary. The foam will probably add a little insulation value if the trailer is kept mostly stationary. From reading the forums it seems that people think the foam will break up into dust if the trailer does a lot of traveling. The bubble wrap in the windows works. Just keeping a good set of curtains closed helps it feel better. Were and how the trailer is parked probably will play a big part in now hard it is to heat. I would think some type of skirting would be a big help. I am generally a wood stove guy and have been using one for 40 years but I would not put one in a space as small as an Airstream for heat. I think the smoke and the mess from the wood and the ashes would be more than I could deal with. Plus it will be very hard to control the temperature. I can see a cycle of it being too hot and then cold. I can see a danger of back drafts. Maybe a very small pellet stove or corn stove might work. Plus I would not want to cut a hole in the skin for the stove pipe. If possible I would use the money for the wood stove and the insulation to build some sort of overhead shelter or a wind screen externally. The absolute best way to winter in an Airstream I have found is to just pull it to somewhere that is warm, if that is an option. (Leaving for Dade City on Dec 26).