Putting a floor covering in your van is a personal preference and its practicality will depend on what you are planning to do with your van conversion, who, where and what is will be used for.  Installing a proper floor is a whole seperate issue with all its own fun! (and hopefully I will have an article on this soon).  The options for a floor covering really extend to carpet or lino.  Lino offers a good easy clean option. Carpet provides a potentially nicer, more comfy option and this is what is dealt with below.

Campervan Carpets

Introduction

There are a range of carpet grades so you can get good hardwearing and even rubber backed carpet allowing you to bring wet or muddy things into the van without worrying too much.  I have friends who have been able to get a hold of commercial vehicle carpet and fabric i.e. like the stuff you get in your car, on a coach or on a train.  I think there is a store somewhere in or near Hull for those of you who live in the north of England?

Buying

Basically, for this aspect you are looking at buying your chosen floor covering (in this case we will look at carpet as that is what I did) or using any spare bits you have lying around and then cutting and fitting yourself.

Making

It would be pretty hard to "make" carpet but certainly sizing, cutting and fitting yourself is a good approach.

You'll Need:

• Your chosen carpet
• Stanley knife
• Impact adhesive and/or Staple gun

Costs were minimal.  I bought carpet shop offcuts which were reasonably heavy duty although not rubber backed which would have been good but was considerably more expensive.  This was about £15, with impact adhesive at £10 a tin and I borrowed a staple gun and staples (no idea what they cost new).

As with all things in your converion, measure very carefully!! The carpet often has to go in before all the other parts of the van are fixed so remember to look forward and think about what might be going where.  I had to cut round the gas bottle and seat runners which was pretty fiddly.

Try to cut the largest continuous pieces you can for the best effect.  Use other features in the van to secure the carpet where possible e.g. tucking under the floor or rails at the cab end. I fixed the rest of the edges with a staple gun. This obviously worked better on horizontal surfaces.  Impact adhesive would work well too but is more permanent.  The carpet will get a lot of abuse in my van, wet kit, muddy shoes so with the staples they can be easily removed, the carpet taken up and replaced when necessary.

Questions

Q: I've seen vans with carpet on the walls - how easy is this to do?

A: Honestly - not sure - I have friends who have used this as a sort of "wall paper" to give the van a more cosy, room type feel as opposed to a shiny metal panel van look. It's definitely more fiddly and takes time but can give a really nice effect.