Batten Down The Hatches
We’ve had a busy and successful few days despite some delays that were out of our control and an attack from the rear door.
Pesky Rust
Since we’ve had the van back from welding and have been in and out a few times doing odd jobs, we’ve begun to notice some signs of the rust patches showing through on the epoxied floor. We are not sure if this is normal but all the same we find it concerning to say the least.
As we still had some POR 15 paint laying around, we decided it wouldn’t hurt to re-paint a couple of coats over the parts that looked worse for wear and hope this will be enough. Ben spent the morning working indoors, whilst I was outside in the van laying down the first coat of paint. It may be overkill but we’d rather not have a nagging worry about the floor once it’s covered up.
A Tale of Dwarf Tossing
Today was the day! The floor and insulation was scheduled to arrive and we hoped to get an early start and make some progress. I was out bright and early this morning, checking over the last coat of paint, whilst Ben waited in for the deliveries. As I finished up the last little bits of the paint it started to absolutely chuck it down. I packed up and ran inside as quick as I could, slipping down the bank and covering myself in the wet mud. I was sympathetically greeted with a nice cup of tea and some lunch, and was also pleased to find that the insulation boards had arrived!
After lunch the weather really brightened up and we had a lovely patch of sunshine, what luck we thought! Waiting eagerly for the battens and floor ply to arrive we paced back and forth and soon got a call saying that the floor was not arriving due to a mechanical problem with the supplier. We were promised it by 12pm next day.
Disappointed as this had put a bit of a dent in our plans we decided to head back out together and put the shiny new weatherstrip and floor trim on (a gift from our wishlist, kindly donated by Ben’s parents). The weatherstrip was now becoming an urgent matter as we’d been having a small puddle form inside the back of the van every time it rained, which seems to be a lot lately.
During this time we’ve also been having this ridiculous wind, which has been strong enough to rip the back door from it’s magnet and slam it shut. Unfortunately I was standing just in front of the van applying the strip when this occurred…. You can imagine the scene… suddenly the door, with the full force of the wind slammed shut smashing into me, hitting my bad shoulder (rotator cuff problem) and knocking me off my feet. I rolled across the back of the van hitting the other side before stopping as I lay there half in half out of the van gazing up at the sky!
I was a little shocked as I didn’t see it coming at all. I should say that this has happened to Ben previously with the same door, he did however, manage to stay standing taking a full hit across the back, after his incident Ben commented that he was glad it wasn’t me because it was so bad.
In summary: we’ve both now been attacked by the door, but have a water tight van that’s looking much nicer with it’s new threshold trim. PS. I’m very sore and had difficulty sleeping, but I am OK!
Batten Time
With the floor now fully coated and dry we eagerly awaited the promised pre 12pm delivery of the floor & battens. We decided to work on some business stuff hoping to get out as soon as possible, 12pm came and went and whilst we got a lot of work done, we slowly realized that perhaps getting the battens and insulation down as we’d planned may not be possible. Finally some time mid afternoon the bits arrived, delivered by a guy that lives just down the road!
We set about cutting up the 4.2m long battens with some equipment lent to us by Ben’s dad John. I had previously drawn up a rough diagram of the layout with the measurements that I’d set in my Sketchup drawing. The initial step was to create a skeleton layout adding battens in where all the major structures would be and getting them stuck down with structural sikaflex. This would give the securing screws of the furniture something to grip onto and provide stability.
The next step was to add more battens in-between this outline to help stop the floor from sagging. However due to the late delivery the day was starting to get on, getting colder and threatening to rain. We were both hungry so we packed up and went in, ordering pizza for dinner as a treat!
We are disappointed not to have gotten further but we both feel we did the best we could with the time we had. We are hoping to get back out as soon as possible and get the rest of the battens down along with getting the insulation in place and the new plywood floor down. This will then let us work on the next phase, getting the windows and fan installed so that we can get on with insulating the walls and ceiling. Always lots to do!