floors and walls

[jjhomeonewheels]

Hello, let me catch you up to speed on what I am doing with my schoolbus. At this point, I have taken out the seats, the heaters, and the floor, painted the metal floor with rust stopping/killing base paint, and sealed up the holes that the seats were bolted through. Now I need to put in a floor, this is what I am wanting to do. I want to put in some tongue and groove wood, probably bamboo as I saw on lumber liquidators online that I can purchase it for about $1.75 a sq. ft. (my bus totalling roughly 300 sq. ft.), also thinking I should put some sort of pad or insulation down, as the cold metal will leech heat from the wood, or disperse cold to the wood. My question is, should I build my wall sections first, then put my flooring in and work around walls, or should I put floor in and then build walls so that i can screw into wood for better stability and durability? Also, if you have some insight or advice on the flooring process or what materials you went with, it would be greatly appreciated to share some ideas with me. Thanks all, for working with me through my exciting project.

[dirtygoat]

I choose to do my floor last... There's no way I could have kept from destroying it with the way I'm building my interior...

I was a general contractor and the floors were always toward the end...

[roach711]

I went pretty much the same route an Glenn. 3/4" poly iso insulation board covered by 3/4" tongue and groove and linoleum over it all. I also put in some thin wood strips to keep the insulation from getting squashed down.

[Hex]

I'm with dirtygoat in that I'm leaving the finished floor until last to preserve it. I'm shooting for maple t&g as the final flooring. After cleaning everything down to the steel floor, I went with paint, then roofing paper, then 3/4" foil-backed rigid insulation & 3/4" x 2" battens, covered with 1/2" plywood.

I'm still working out how to prep for the tiling in the bathroom (whether to have a full 3/4" of insulation under the latex-impregnated gypsum-board), but I think it'll be in there, at least outside of the shower area.

And you might want the insulation not just to preserve the flooring, but also to cut road noise. Having the amount of floor that I've got done in has made a great difference in my bus.

[Six Four]

I used 1/2 foam insulation with the aluminum bareer on it, then used 5/8 tounge and grooved sturdy floor. I was gonna put the vynle flooring down first since it would be alot easier to do know but I ended up not havi g enuff of that, so I started the walls and will lay down tongue and grove hardwood, I got a deal on it so that's my route. I can say this I been running a propane infrared heater which if you look in my pics you can see it, but with in 20 mins it will run you out on low.

[kimberlink]

My vote is for the Foam and Tongue and groove Plywood first and then walls and finished floor covering last.

Just my vote

[dirtygoat]

I plan on doing my floors with a garage floor parking pad... It's thick rubber, 7'6"x20' roll and diamond plate textured to match a lot of the material I've used... I'll use a roll of thick brown painters paper to make a template, so it'll be cut to fit... I want it removable for cleaning and fixing stuff... Not sure how insulating it is, but I've spent tons of hours standing on concrete in the winter out in the garage and the thick rubber mats work the best at keeping your toes from falling off...

[moosiah]

I hoping not to change the floor in my crown- it's 1 1/2" marine ply on the metal frame work of the chassis.. the walls are just stainless inside, covering the outside... the big project is pulling the ceiling out to put 1" foam insulation up there , then some in the walls .. fun ..

[jjhomeonewheels]

Originally Posted by dirtygoat

I choose to do my floor last... There's no way I could have kept from destroying it with the way I'm building my interior...

I was a general contractor and the floors were always toward the end...

For those that decided to put their floor in last, what did you do to stabalize the walls? did you bolt the walls down through the metal floors and then when you apply flooring do you plan to build around walls? And for those that did floors before walls, did you drill/bolt dirrectly into wood floor and metal when putting up the wall?

[dirtygoat]

Just like when building a house, attach walls to floor, ceiling, exterior walls... Then final floor built around walls... If I have to take up the flooring for any reason, I don't want to remove walls... That's just me though...

[lornaschinske]

We were also in construction and have installed many floors of hardwood & ceramic tile. Our finished floors will go down as one of the last things. Our floor will be insulated under the bus. We will be using 12x12 Commercial Vinyl Tile (in stock at the store I work at) glued down to the original incredibly well stuck rubber bus floor covering. I will use inexpensive "throw" rugs on the floor (the kind you "throw away" when they get too dirty & stained). Our walls are secured to the floor ("L" brackets) and the original walls (board screwed to wall then the wall panel is screwed to the board). Our wall panels are flush doors. We can't build a real finished 2 sided wall for $1/inch. One of the doors we bought was a damaged prehung/prebored 36" door. I got it marked down to $10. We only needed about 15" so we trimmed off the "hole" for the door knob (cut off the damage at the same time), trimmed the height and put it in place. The frame that came with the set up was turned into a face frame only vanity. And I still have the door stop molding that will be used to trim my flat panel plywood vanity cabinet doors (to make them look like a "normal" flat panel door with the raised edges). I want all my cabinet doors to be on the thick side so that I can screw hooks and eyes (to hold things) any place I want on the backside of the cabinet door. So we are using thicker plywood and applying screen molding to the face.

We are also using a cheaper plywood ($20 per sheet) and skimming Rock Hard Putty to cover the imperfections in the wood. Since we are painting the cabinets inside & out, we can get away with this and I wanted a really hard filler for all the filled spots. I am not happy with most of the lumber. Quality has gone way down and prices have gone up. To get a decent sheet of plywood would cost us over $30. David had bought that huge can of putty back during the summer to make a repair on the roof of the food cart (rotted spot on roof). I figured we might as well use it. I mixed it up (add water to the dry powder) a little thin and spread a really thin coat on, scraping the excess off, just to fill the depressions and knots. David says this stuff dries harder than the wood it fills. Said to keep it as thin as possible otherwise I would spend far too much time sanding. So I skim coated the floor panel of one cabinet - interior, exterior (won't be seen since it's the bottom but it will get painted), as well as the front edge so I won't have to buy edge banding tape (which may or may not peel off later). I have tomorrow off so I will finish filling/sanding the sink side of the galley then. Next week I will have a working kitchen sink... no more washing dishes in the food cart or bathroom sink! Today while I am at work, David will put together the plumbing supply/drain lines and connect it to the appropriate inlet/outlets. Next paycheck will mean the shower walls and maybe a water heater. No more freezing cold bathhouse (they claim the heat is on but it's not)! With all the extra hours I've been getting, we are trying to get as much done as possible. Once all the must haves are done (by Christmas???), I can start buying the "I wanna's"... like a used washer & LP dryer. I really don't want to schlep our laundry back & forth to the laundry room in the wintertime.

For our Black Friday sales, Home Depot had Allure flooring for under $1/sq ft "while supplies lasted". By end of Saturday it was all gone and we had a lot of it. Maybe they will run another sale on it for Christmas.

[mikerob643]

Please read the reply below my phone accidentally double post ( dang phones )

[mikerob643]

After everyone puts down the insulation . how are you attaching the tongue and grove plywood down of the " floating floor" ? Are you drilling it to the strips of wood in between the insolation or are you Drilling self tapping metal screws down into the floor? And if so , are you worried about having the holes in your floor?
I've been wondering about this for attaching the floor as well as attaching the walls and roof.
I have been reading a lot about self tapping screws but it seems like screwing into the sheet metal would cause holes and then you would have screw and poking out on the outside. My thought is maybe everyone is just attaching to the metal ribbing for the walls and ceiling, but I'm still a little perplexed about the floor.