Looking for advice

[eladsgarr]

Looking for advice on the start of my build. I have a 2006 Thomas pusher with a Cat C7. I was luck enough to have the seats removed prior to taking possession. Right now I’m undecided on/need advice on a couple of things. There are two heaters that need removing in the rear. Can anyone tell me if there’s a cutoff valve that I need to close and where it might be located? Should I and can I run the lines under the bus to continue using the front heater for the defroster? How do I reroute/disconnect/fix that rear button I have to push when I turn the ignition off? Should I remove the rubber (or whatever material it is) flooring and whatever lies beneath down to the bare metal? I watched Bussy McBusface just apply 2X4 boards over top of the buses flooring in a pattern, and use styrofoam insulation between the boards and finally capped it with plywood. Is this an option that won’t cause later issues? Any advice is greatly appreciated. This forum has been a help already with helping me find insurance and a way to register my bus. Seem to be a good group of people here and I hope to meet some of you on the road in the future.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by eladsgarr

I watched Bussy McBusface just apply 2X4 boards over top of the buses flooring in a pattern, and use styrofoam insulation between the boards and finally capped it with plywood. Is this an option that won’t cause later issues? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

I don't know why people do this. It's not a huge deal, but XPS foam board has an R-value of 5 per inch, while wood has an R-value of just 1 per inch. So to maximize the overall insulation value of your subfloor, you want it to be as much insulation and as little wood as possible.

XPS has a typical compression rating of 25 PSI, so with plywood on top of it, it doesn't really need furring strips at all. If you want to use furring strips anyway, a 1" wide strip of 2X (1.5" thick) or even a piece of 2X2 would be just as strong (in terms of resisting the bending of the plywood) while using less than half as much wood.

I even saw one build where the person used 1X6 on its side in a grid with tiny little squares of XPS in between - it was more than half wood, so what should have been an R-value of 3.75 was instead less than 2.25.