Factory Sub flooring

[Annaelliott]

Hi guys.
I’ve just brought a iveco daily 2007 to convert into a camper. It came with the factory fit flooring and I’m just wondering if I can use this as my subfloor after insulating. Everybody seems to use ply and I was wondering if anybody knew the cons of using the factory fitted instead. It fits so perfectly I don’t see why a cut out template from ply would be necessary instead.
Thanks in advance
Anna.

 

[Millie Master]

I will leave others to reply to your question about the flooring, my concern is with regards to your van.

The Iveco Daily is a brilliant van with superb, strong mechanicals, however their bodies are more than somewhat prone to the dreaded rust bug and one of the worst (and oft invisible) areas is the joint between the floor section and the sides as well as indeed the sills. So once you have removed the floor, I suggest you check very thoroughly for signs of the dreaded munching monster and thoroughly treat whatever you will no doubt discover as well as indeed all other areas.

Good luck

Phil

 

[Annaelliott]

Hi Phil, thanks so much for reading and responding.
We’ve just been working for the last two weeks removing all of the rust that was under the factory fitted subfloor. We had to weld both of the wheel arches and some other patches too. Pretty nightmarish but very glad it’s all done now
Just seems to make sense now to insulate and put the same flooring back down and then add a layer of vinyl but I’m completely new to this and was wondering why people don’t seem to use the factory fitted floor as sub flooring. Hopefully someone can give me some advice
Thanks again!

 

[Pudsey Bear]

If you've done the prep and rustproofed it properly and the flooring is worth leaving down and is undamaged why not, of course there could be all sorts of chemicals in it that maybe you might not want to sleep on and is why most chuck it and use shuttering ply as it's the cheapest and more than up to it, beware of what you use for insulation as you don't want anything that can attract moisture or worse soak it up and sit there rotting the floor, I am a big fan of doing all the electrics and then getting it spray foamed, it is by far the best for warmth and keeping cool in summer, a minimum of 25 -50mm you can get DIY kits.

 

[trevskoda]

I lifted all mine or most of it and covered new stuff with grp before putting it down again, then a top layer of bubble foil before the click wood effect plastic flooring, seems to work well.

 

[Red Dwarf]

The factory flooring that came out of my sprinter was really heavy dense stuff. I used the panels as a pattern for the new floor, some of the old floor was used for making a strong bulkheads to contain the batteries and the the water tank.