Homebuilt Teardrop Trailer 4: Insulation

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This is part four in a series documenting our homebuilt teardrop trailer, about insulation. Scroll to the bottom for links to previous posts.

Insulating the trailer wasn't 100% “necessary” but was definitely something we wanted to do; after years of tent camping and waking up slightly damp, afraid to touch the walls, this was something we wanted to avoid if we could, so we decided to insulate.

Using sheets of 3/4″ styrofoam that was cut and sanded to fit, all of the exterior-facing walls are insulated for warmth and cool, and to prevent condensation. We did *not* insulate the floor; we have an 8″ mattress in there, which is more than enough insulation against the chill.

We sleep under a thin quilt and are plenty cozy, and often end up throwing a leg out to cool down because with three people sleeping and breathing in there all night, it gets downright toasty!

Rough fitting the sheets, before the interior walls were put in:

Finalizing fit, sanding down the sheets to get them flush with the frame. Jamie made his own sanding block with coarse grit sandpaper stapled to a block of scrap wood. The styrofoam we used had the silver finish to start with, but as you can see, most of it ended up sanded off. (It's SO important to wear breathing protection when doing this sort of work!)

Final shot of insulation before exterior skin went on:

Preview of insulation with ceiling installed. (That's coming in the next post!)Foam is covering the wiring that runs along the whole trailer, for the interior reading lights and the outside galley light.