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Traveler7's avatar
Traveler7
Explorer
Jun 10, 2018

New Flooring for the Camper Van

Big Day for the van today- cut out the piece of osb board for the upstairs bed and my flooring came in a week early so I picked it up! My brother amd I spent all day installing it.

It is from Lumber Liquidators and is a laminate called American Beech. It was on sale for 59 cents a foot, so a bargain1

Here are some pics:

I cleaned and wiped down the plywood subfloor and covered the hole where the table mount used to be screwed into-



Then we laid down the foam layer for the click together floating floor to float on



Here sre the boxes of flooring- American Beech color



Laying the first couple of clicker boards was very difficult and frustrating because the van is old and the cabinet has bowed in so nothing is square. Once we got several together it became easier, but there was some swearing and bleeding until then!







Detail of the flooring-



finished laying it!





This was a big deal getting this accomplished and Cutting the board for the bed. I also experimented with running the fridge off of the battery and inverter and ran it that way most of day with partly cloudy weather and then storm clouds rolled in and I went back to plugging it into the external power. Fridge was at 29 degrees all day so I need to work this out and try for an even temperature around 35-40 degrees.

I also wired in the Propane detector today and it has power- haven't experimented with it yet.

More notes later on next project and completing the flooring by adding based board and trim.

Thanks for checking in on my project- please leave a comment if you have time :-)
  • Traveler7's avatar
    Traveler7
    Explorer
    Jun 16, 2018
    westend wrote:
    Nice job, I'll bet you'll like the way the flooring works out for 'ya. I did the same thing about 6 years ago in my TT and the flooring still looks good. I used a Lumber Liquidators product and it has held up extremely well.


    Thank you- good to hear, do you have any pictures?
  • westend's avatar
    westend
    Explorer
    Jun 15, 2018
    Nice job, I'll bet you'll like the way the flooring works out for 'ya. I did the same thing about 6 years ago in my TT and the flooring still looks good. I used a Lumber Liquidators product and it has held up extremely well.
  • stevemorris's avatar
    stevemorris
    Explorer
    Jun 14, 2018
    i just finished laminate flooring in our 26 ft trailer, love it.
    done it in 3 trailers in the last 10 years.
    the only one that was an issue was an amerilite 22 with the luan/foam subfloor, it was like walking on a waterbed and the laminate kept unlocking in a couple of spots
    present trailer is a kz(2007), much more solid and floor is wonderful
  • Traveler7's avatar
    Traveler7
    Explorer
    Jun 13, 2018
    sgfrye wrote:
    i like it. nice work

    there is an older chevy class c for about an hour from us that looks to be in good shape and a bargain price. my wife vetoed the idea but i had thoughts of buying it, ripping out the carpet, replacing with this type of flooring, painting cabinets, etc. she said our TT was all we need.

    i like projects too.


    Thank you. If you'd like to see the 4 year saga on this vehicle here is a link to my postings on the Class B Camping Van Conversions Forum.

    Class B restoration Project
  • Traveler7's avatar
    Traveler7
    Explorer
    Jun 13, 2018
    JimK-NY wrote:
    I would never use wood. It is too heavy and add way too much extra weight that I need to haul around the country. We have vinyl flooring that has held up well but is a sickly yellow-green color. I decided to try indoor-outdoor carpeting from Home Depot. The carpet was inexpensive, about $50, but it took me hours and hours to do the layout and cutting so there were no seems and it fit perfectly. I was afraid it would get dirty quickly but we travelled for 3 months and at the end it still looked clean. Even so I pulled it out and washed it on the driveway. I think it will last for many years and now I have a template if I want to replace it. The carpet felt great with bare feet and cold weather.


    This click together stuff is only 7mm thick so it is pretty lightweight...maybe 25lbs of material all said and done in the van,
  • DrewE's avatar
    DrewE
    Explorer II
    Jun 12, 2018
    JimK-NY wrote:
    I would never use wood. It is too heavy and add way too much extra weight that I need to haul around the country. We have vinyl flooring that has held up well but is a sickly yellow-green color. I decided to try indoor-outdoor carpeting from Home Depot. The carpet was inexpensive, about $50, but it took me hours and hours to do the layout and cutting so there were no seems and it fit perfectly. I was afraid it would get dirty quickly but we travelled for 3 months and at the end it still looked clean. Even so I pulled it out and washed it on the driveway. I think it will last for many years and now I have a template if I want to replace it. The carpet felt great with bare feet and cold weather.


    I'm glad you're really happy with your carpet and it's working out well for you. However, I think the concern over weight is somewhat misplaced.

    Laminate and engineered wood flooring weighs somewhere around 1.5 pounds per square foot. Vinyl and lightweight carpet with a pad are roughly the same weight. Full thickness (3/4") hardwood flooring is maybe twice that weight, depending on the species. In any case, I wouldn't think that around 100 pounds evenly distributed should make that big a difference for most RVs unless they're very close to being overloaded to begin with.

    Ceramic or stone tile (with the proper mortar to set it in) is a good bit heavier still and for that it could be a concern more of the time. Such tiles also don't flex, which can be a concern for an RV.
  • JimK-NY's avatar
    JimK-NY
    Explorer II
    Jun 12, 2018
    I would never use wood. It is too heavy and add way too much extra weight that I need to haul around the country. We have vinyl flooring that has held up well but is a sickly yellow-green color. I decided to try indoor-outdoor carpeting from Home Depot. The carpet was inexpensive, about $50, but it took me hours and hours to do the layout and cutting so there were no seems and it fit perfectly. I was afraid it would get dirty quickly but we travelled for 3 months and at the end it still looked clean. Even so I pulled it out and washed it on the driveway. I think it will last for many years and now I have a template if I want to replace it. The carpet felt great with bare feet and cold weather.
  • sgfrye's avatar
    sgfrye
    Explorer
    Jun 12, 2018
    i like it. nice work

    there is an older chevy class c for about an hour from us that looks to be in good shape and a bargain price. my wife vetoed the idea but i had thoughts of buying it, ripping out the carpet, replacing with this type of flooring, painting cabinets, etc. she said our TT was all we need.

    i like projects too.
  • jfkmk's avatar
    jfkmk
    Explorer
    Jun 10, 2018
    Looks really nice! BTW, your comment about nothing being square applies th S&B as well. I've done enough flooring to realize that!

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