AVION Travel Trailers

I have removed all the carpeting and wood parquet flooring in our trailer. We are leaning toward using waterproof interlocking vinyl plank flooring as replacement throughout.

I'm considering installing radiant heat matting under the plank floor. It would eliminate using space heaters. I'll leave the furnace operational as supplemental or for off-grid camping.

I haven't yet worked out electrical load requirements, installation process and cost-benefit tradeoff. But now is the time to do it if practical.

Has anyone done this...either you or someone else?

Thanks,

Bob

I have not done this in a trailer, but I REALLY like the idea. I won't be redoing our floor until summer at the earliest, but it's something I plan to research when the time comes. I look forward to hearing about what you come up with.

Here's a company that popped up for me...

http://www.warmfloor.com/floor-heating/cost-to-operate/

KYAvion wrote: ↑Wed Jan 03, 2018 5:29 pm Here's a company that popped up for me...

http://www.warmfloor.com/floor-heating/cost-to-operate/

Thanks for the info. The numbers look very impressive.

All indications are the furnace in our trailer is the original, We haven't had the unit evaluated yet. However, considering the cost of a new furnace and the LPG to run it, the heat mat choice could be a no-brainer.

Again, the only hiccup to not having an operational furnace is boon-docking, which is not in our plans.

Yes, I will report out on my findings. I have lots of time inside to ruminate on this; Besides, it 5 degrees F here and headed to -4; I'm not going anywhere.

Bob

I decided to do a little more research on vinyl plank flooring.

I called tech support at Shaw Floors, manufacturers of Smartcore. The rep told me it must be used in a climate-controlled environment. Although some of their flooring is waterproof, it will not withstand the temperature and humidity swings in trailer use.

She mentioned symptoms like buckle, cup, warp, etc. It will be a beautiful floor that will become totally unusable.

Looks like I'm back to vinyl, carpet, parquet or some other form of "unobtainium".

I did plank flooring in my prior trailer and it held up fine. I didn't read the fine print, but I bet it also specified that it should only be used in conditioned spaces.

Anything new on the radiant heat front?

Frankly, I'm so busy trying to get the base trailer completed that I don't have time to experiment.

Not to add to your list of things to do, but how about starting a thread with pics of your progress?

I just have to remember how to do it. I have some many that I want to pick through the best ones by category.

Just in case you didn't catch the post, resizing is no longer necessary to post pics. You're welcome to just start a thread in the pics forum if you want...Silverloaf's Avion Reno or something has nice ring...