Insulation

Converting Cargo Trailers into TTTs

Insulation

Postby Trimmy » Wed Jul 20, 2022 6:39 am

Hello,

My name is Justin. I have been surfing Tnttt for a while now reading while planning my build. I have owned three commercial campers and they have all been sub par in my opinion. I want to build my own CTC Toy hauler. Other than the terrible build quality one thing I could not stand about my past trailers were the lack of insulation in them. I plan at least R10 foam board in the floor and the walls. I have a lot of R21 batt insulation laying around from the 20x44 addition I just built on my house last year. Could I use the batt insulation in the roof? Sorry if this has been answered I have not been able to find the answer. I've never been that good at searching forums. My 8.5x24x7 trailer is supposed to arrive tomorrow.

Thanks
Justin
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Re: Insulation

Postby hankaye » Wed Jul 20, 2022 7:20 am

Trimmy, Howdy;

First off, WELCOME !

IMO, and it's only worth what ya paid for it, is this. With Batt insulation you have the 'loft' or the distance
from the face to the back. when you start compacting/reducing the amount of 'loft' you would begin to
lose R's. So how thick will your ceiling be? Just something to ruminate about.

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Re: Insulation

Postby bdosborn » Wed Jul 20, 2022 8:55 am

Fiberglass insulation holds water and will lose it's loft as well as grow mold over time. I wouldn't use it in a high humidity environment like a trailer.
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Re: Insulation

Postby Trimmy » Wed Jul 20, 2022 3:41 pm

hankaye wrote:Trimmy, Howdy;

First off, WELCOME !

IMO, and it's only worth what ya paid for it, is this. With Batt insulation you have the 'loft' or the distance
from the face to the back. when you start compacting/reducing the amount of 'loft' you would begin to
lose R's. So how thick will your ceiling be? Just something to ruminate about.

hank


Yea I plan to drop the ceiling down to the height of the rear door opening and filling the entire void with insulation. I plan at least r20 in the ceiling which with foam board is 4” thick. So I’ll build it down roughly 5” to hide the rear spring assist.

Thanks for the insight.
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Re: Insulation

Postby Trimmy » Wed Jul 20, 2022 3:41 pm

bdosborn wrote:Fiberglass insulation holds water and will lose it's loft as well as grow mold over time. I wouldn't use it in a high humidity environment like a trailer.
Bruce



That makes sense and something I did not even think about.
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Re: Insulation

Postby JasenC » Wed Jul 20, 2022 6:33 pm

The batt insulation is a bad idea as already stated, aside from lost R from compression it needs to breath or it'll accumulate moisture just from your breath.
This is why we do roof vents, vented bird blocking and/or gable vents on houses.
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Re: Insulation

Postby Modstock » Wed Jul 20, 2022 7:11 pm

I saw a van build that stuffed that inside his doors. He had 3" of water at the bottom in just a few months.

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Re: Insulation

Postby tony.latham » Wed Jul 20, 2022 10:19 pm

I use foam board for reasons stated above, plus it is structural. It supports both internal and external sheathing. It adds a lot of strength.

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:thinking:

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Re: Insulation

Postby bdosborn » Thu Jul 21, 2022 8:40 am

The van guys have a lot of info on insulating, a lot more than I remember seeing for teardrops. Of course its been awhile since I insulated the trailers :thinking: . Anyways, here's more than you need to know about insulating.

https://faroutride.com/insulation/

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