flooring

[staggerlee917]

Just wondering if anyone removed the rubber flooring before starting thier conversion project. I am thinking about doing this to make it easier to put down linoleum in the kitchen area.

Thanks, Keith

[stego]

HEY 917-

I would defineltey (SP?) pull up the old rubber. It's not too hard if you have a warm day (90+) , or a heat source of some kind. Not only will it give you a flat floor, it will let you see what shape the plywood is in!
Go for it & good luck!

Marshall

[lapeer20m]

pulling up the rubber flooring sounds like a lot of work....is it necessary?

The rubber floor was in excellent condition on my skoolie, so i just left it alone.

I put foamboard insulation on top of the rubber floor, followed by plywood, then carpet/tile.

The rubber flooring should help with sound deadening too.

One downside to leaving the rubber floor in is that my floor isnt square. It bows up slightly in the center.

[busone]

I don't know for sure but I am just guessing that if water gets under the rubber you could have some problems. I would think it is more likely that water could get under there from the holes where the seats were attached. It could just be me though I always like to start with a clean slate. When we bought our house we gutted it down to the studs.

[Vern1]

Greetings,
I also wanted to start with a solid foundation, so I ripped the rubber floor up.
I have a 1/16" steel floor in mine, so I wanted to see what rust damage there was.
Fortunately, there was not much rust and only thru in two small places less than 3/8" diameter, so after I cleaned, treated the rust and primed it with 2 part epoxy primer, I patched those and all the seat mount and screw holes with galvanized tin caps held down with butyl caulk.
There was a little caulk sticking out the sides of a few, but that was trimmed off with a wood chisel.
This made for a relatively flat and well sealed floor.
I have carpet everywhere except the bath where I used vinyl tile.
The vinyl is pretty flat with no padding, but is covered with a rug!
If I was going to use tile or sheet vinyl on a whole bus with a steel floor, I would probably install a subfloor or float out the seams with bondo or something to make it as flat as possible.