Preparing the insulation

Today we split up and pruned down 17 pieces of hard foam insulation.  It was one of my least favorite days so far.  The foam board is hard to work with and the outside temperatures reached an all time low for us of 17F making the garage almost insufferable to be in for many hours at a time.   I could ward off the bone chilling temperatures, but not the stupid insulation dust.  When I hacked into it with a butter knife, as Daniel has suggested, insulation just squeaks loudly most of the time, and otherwise disintegrates into airborne particles that float intentionally towards your eyes and try to get in your mouth.

We had a sweet rhythm going, though.  Using a table saw, we cut the long foam pieces 7.5" lengthwise, and then halved piece's thickness in order to give us 1/2"-3/4"-thick pieces to adhere straight onto the walls of the van (layers of spray foam and Reflectix comes later).  After a bit we were forced to open the garage door because of the air quality.  I felt sad about releasing such gonkus into the mountain air, but we chose self-preservation over being ecofriendly.  Lesson learned: insulation is nasty stuff but will be our best friend down the road.  

The most significant thing we realized today is that we don't need to follow a linear sequence of building-then-installing.  We can pre-fab everything: the bed frame, the compartments, the bench seat, the kitchen pop-up counters, etc., etc., and then install it altogether in one go. There wont be any caulking or gluing any time soon because those things require it to be warmer to dry, so we will go ahead with building out the frame and countertops.  -Delilah

  

Hangin' with Shiloh dog in the downtime.

View of Sentinel range from our spot.