Most of the rest of this build will sit on the floor. So I had to put in a floor. In a theme that will appear many times in the course of this build, I got on the internet to look at what other people do for van floors. In another theme that will reappear, the options used in taller vans weren’t gonna work well for me. I don’t have any extra headroom to give up, so I opted for a layer of Reflectix insulation under a 1/2″ piece of plywood. I was worried about the bubble wrap part of the insulation popping when the floor got walked on, but other people have done this. After walking around on the floor a whole bunch, I haven’t had any problems, so it seems to be working.
The plywood will ultimately be my subfloor. It gives me something to screw into later, but when all is said and done, I’ll put some other kind of flooring on the visible part of the floor. Being a foundational part of the build, I wanted it to be a little more water-resistant than just plywood. I put a coat of primer on it, so hopefully that extends the life.
The last step was connecting the plywood to the floor. My van has the advantage that the space between the wheel wells is the same width as a standard sheet of plywood. So I wasn’t too worried about side to side, but I don’t want my floor to slide around front to back. I want to minimize the number of holes I put in the body of my van, particularly in the floor where water can splash in, so I didn’t screw the floor down. Instead, I glued it. I used a heavy-duty subfloor adhesive to glue the insulation to the plywood and then the whole piece to the floor. I ran out of adhesive at the very end, so the last bit was replaced with sealant instead. After carefully placing the floor down, I left a bunch of weight on it for a few days while the glue set.
The biggest challenge I encountered in the floor install was getting the plywood home. When I bought the plywood, the saw at Home Depot wasn’t working, which meant I had to fit the 8’x4′ sheet in my 7’x4′ cargo area. Somehow we pulled it off, but my dad had an uncomfortable ride home from the store.
