More info & other resources: ➤Lizard Skin Ceramic Insulation (12 Gallons): amzn.to/37eVWsg ➤Lizard Skin Application Kit: amzn.to/3NJ39Bd ➤Air Compressor: amzn.to/35ydkaE ➤Respirator Mask: amzn.to/3NJh1vC ➤Tyvek Suit: amzn.to/38pkzTu Here's the Thermal Camera we bought for this video: amzn.to/3Mc99RE Videos from other creators about ceramic insulation (and not necessarily Lizard Skin) we found useful: ➤Lizard Skin Ceramic Insulation test on dash and floor pan of hot rod: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pLZ6h6eoz5fVYH0.html ➤'Touch Test' (maybe less of a 'test' and more of just a good example): kzfaq.info/get/bejne/m7-Jm65hxNKvdKs.html ➤Great informative video (see what they do with the coffee cup): kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fpijeNamnKmZaKs.html ➤'How Ceramic Insulation Works' w/ Window Tinting: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pblpp5mB0dKdZGw.html ➤'How Ceramic Insulation Works' w/ race car headers: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/baeTrcuc07atgJ8.html

Friend of mine had a standard van he was converting. He had all his wiring in and decided to get it sprayed with closed cell foam from a company that was doing his neighbor's house. He prepped/taped off everything that needed protection and for $200 had it done. Huge difference sound wise and heat/cold retention. No warping of body panels and the price was right!

Ceramic tint for the windshield should be mandatory for any van build - use a 70 or 80 percent film that is nearly clear. The difference is amazing. These windshields are huge.

My first van build was 12 years ago on a 2006 sprinter. I used spray foam insulation. If I knew before hand that it could cause warping I would not of used it. It didn't warp thank goodness. It also would be a pain to have to remove the product if you wanted to remodel or add wiring, windows, etc. My latest build is a 2020 Transit High roof and I used the Lizard skin products. I think the confusion of the Lizard Skin ceramic is that it's not an insulation product but more of a reflective product. It will reflect that radiant sun which will reduce the skin temp of the van. The hand test on a sunny day is by far very convincing. The Lizard Skin sound deadening works great too just like the peel and stick. I feel you could just spray a percent of the panel, just like the peel and stick, to get good results from the sound deadener. I used Havelock wool as my insulation along with Reflective Foam insulation on the back of my finish panels.

So - these two tests are testing different things. For the first test, we are testing how something at a higher temperature interacts with something at a lower temperature. Heat flows from warmer to colder. Pretty basic, and this product doesn't seem to do much for that. If you wanted to test this same thing for the second test, you'd need to put a cold van in a hot place that is NOT in the direct sun. I think we'd find that the inside of the van comes up to the ambient temperature relatively quickly with only the Lizard Skin and no real insulation. However, the second test is more about how much a source of infrared energy is reflected. The sun is directly heating things that absorb infrared energy. Therefore, an interesting test to reverse the direction would be to point the thermal camera at the _outside_ of the van when it's cold out AND there is a source of heat inside of the van. I think you'd find that less of the heat source is just radiated away directly through the walls that have the ceramic coating. Therefore, more of that energy bounces around inside and has a chance to heat objects and people inside the van. In other words, this product would still likely help with reducing the fuel/energy needed to keep the inside "comfortable". It would also likely reduce the "cold window" feeling we get when near something that doesn't reflect any of our infrared heat back at us. When regular insulation is then added, there is a slower bleed of energy one direction or the other due to temperature differences, and that will of course reduce the rate of energy transfer due to the temperature delta.

Great data Rich videos on both the sound deadening and the lizard skin ceramic insulation. Love the interaction of you and your wife together... Great partnership.

Ceramic works best at reflecting heat. So, for tinted windows it reflects the heat before it comes through the window. For race car headers, it reflects the heat from the exhaust gases. This is important for them because they want the heat energy to stay inside the exhaust flow and not radiate out. The guy that did the test with the panels outside had the coated surface out, so it was reflecting the heat away before it could be absorbed into the part. For the van use case, most of the time it's just like the sound deadening in that it's just added mass. My hunch is that during the winter, if you had a heater on inside the van, and the panels were exposed, it would reflect the heat back into the van and make it easier to keep it warm. I think you'll lose most of that when you put finish panels over top, but some of the benefit will likely remain. For the summer, the heat has already went through the metal when it gets to the coating, so any reflection just feeds energy back in to the metal panel. Since the energy doesn't escape, it will likely have a much smaller effect.

Thankyou for giving us all an open unbiased view of this product. I personally live in Australia in dry high heat conditions. I think a lizard skin or similar ceramic basecoat on the OUTER of the van would work better to reflect heat BEFORE its stored in the chassis, additionally reducing scratches, but that's just my intuition. There's a lot of people that misunderstand insulation and think that with more it will just work "better", it slows down heat transfer in BOTH directions, so if you've left your van in the desert all day with huge insulation, it's actually HARDER to cool it down again. The more objects in your van that are storing heat like little batteries ALSO adds to this. IMO, if you have the capacity/patience for it, a pop up car tent for shade is superior to internal insulation vs the sun.

This was the most helpful video I’ve seen so far for van applications of this product. Thanks!!

Looks like a really great product. I would definitely love to see the interior heat difference between a fully raw van on a hot day and a van that was full coated with the ceramic. I live in FL, and a highly effective insulation is my primary concern going into my van build. I imagine doubling up on ceramic and then something like thinsulate would be excellent. The data on the actual differences would be fascinating.

I love how much time and effort was put into showing the results. I wanted to spray two of my vehicles but they sit outside 24/7 in the desert and it hit me that they won't benefit if the lizard skin is outside and the temps are elevated. The interior will remain hot long after my family and I hop into one of the vehicles. It would have to either be a long road trip or find a way to cool off the vehicle before hopping in.

Thanks for all the great testing. I've decided to go with lizard skin after watching these videos. I suspect the results here are actually understating the effect since heat flows from hot to cold and the test sites are in contact with each other.

Great video! I was interested to see how it turned out. As a thermographer with over a decade of experience it would be fun comparing a higher spec camera against the FLIR One you used.

That Solid Wood Works video was the one that convinced me in the beginning...

I can also see the benefit of Lizard Skin on panels like side sliding door and back doors where you aren't going to cover the exposed metal with wood or cloth fabric. It helps prevent heat build-up in the van and the textured surface looks pretty cool compared to just the smooth painted metal.

This is awesome and your test results are inline with what I was anticipating. I wasn't familiar with this product until you started this series. I am familiar with ceramics, we use ceramic cutting inserts when machining aerospace metals. Ceramic is a fantastic insulation for thermal heat transfer, i'm not surprised that it wasn't as effective for retaining heat. I suspect that you will be very happy with this on hot summer days when the sun is baking on the outer shell. I will be using this product when I (eventually) build my Transit. I look forward to your future videos :)

Another way yo prevent some heat from reaching your interior, is to mount your rigid solar panels 4" or so above the roof. This allows good air flow to wisp away the heat gererated by the panels while shading the roof.

Combine the LizzardSkin products with wool-insulation, gives You the perfect campervan in terms of temperatures and sound. sprayfoam can be a pain in the ass, when it comes to rewire things.

Great video! Your last bit was a teeny bit confusing as to whether or not you recommended the sound deadening, it sounded like no but then she mentioned if you are doing the thermal layer then do the sound deadening layer?

Its easy to use for sure. And with one layer the insulation is pretty nice. You do need to compare like for like. So based on thermal properties. It's 3x less effective than for example armaflex. 4mm. So in effect you would need to spray 3 layers for same results. Not sure if cost comparison is also balancing out than. Might differ from you climate what you would need to install. So one layer lizard may be enough.

Excellent video, great information and resources. Thank you!

I have a ceramic fiber blanket behind my boat stove. It's incredibly effective but expensive!

Just a thought, if you sprayed on the lizard skin or even a bed liner and then spray foam over that, maybe the exterior panels won’t warp.

We have a new sprinter 170 that we just began converting. Our first project was peel and stick sound deadening. My question is would you recommend additional sound deadening over the peel and stick. Also, I'm sold on the ceramic insulation. How much product would your recommend?

I wonder how all this translates into R values... also there are double foil panels ... which helped my rig much. I use Rockwool too

Thank you, you guys are awesome

Do you know if the ceramic insulation would bond adequately to the metal without the spray-on sound deadening? My thoughts would be to spray the whole van with Lizard Skin ceramic insulation and then apply peel-n-stick sound deadening over top.

Getting things ready for a cargo trailer conv, wanted to use this product but the cost will just be to high for and 8.5w x20L x 8H space. Hope I dont regret not doing it.

Thanks for your videos! Amazing job. We are planning out our first build - one question of this subject. We live and play in Canada and anticipate living in our van in the winter. Do you feel the Lizard Skin acts as a thermal break from the exterior van to the wood cladding? I feel there needs to be something between especially for vans that are spending time in colder climates. 2nd question - do you think you will provide kits that uses the higher amp hour batteries soon? Thanks!

Did anyone find out that spraying or coating the outside of your van will have a much better results on heat barrier? Then add foam or wool insulating inside.

Great Video as always. I just built my system in my trailer with a 3000 Watt inverter/charger. 600 watts of solar and 340 AH Lithium batteries. Your videos helped me so much, so I would like to say thank you. I do have a question about charging the lithium batteries and what state of charge should I keep them in. I keep my trailer in my yard so it is always plugged into shore power. I have read that you shouldn't keep the batteries at 100%. The charger will not come on until the batteries reach 12.5 volt but should I leave my solar charging all the time or should I let the batteries stay at a lower state of charge? Thanks for all the hard work and help you provide to us newbie's

Fantastic!

Thank you! Great vids! Will y'all be doing ceramic window film tests to? Can you put it on polycarbonate windows (are y'all using any of those?). Bless ✌🏽

Great video.

I've used poly-iso and the purple one that's a little better in milder cold climates. Both with success. Problem I've been considering is in the hot summer everything tends to make it more like an oven unless you have an AC on. I'm beginning to think having air flow or AC in the summer months is a better option than maxxing out the R value. Once a van gets hot it's pretty much impossible to cool the frame down without waiting hours.

Great info. You are the only people that have shown this kind of info. Have you done a vid on sound deadening. I hear (excuse the pun) lizard skin is great for that. Also the weight that lizard skin adds to the van?

Thanks a lot

nicely done! well presented video. I'm looking at doing something similar. I found 2 other ceramic products: thermacells paint additive, and cool coat. do you know anything about these? why how did you choose the lizard skin?

My personal thoughts; looking at your computer screen was a bit annoying, because original video was much smaller. Imagine what the people on their phones had to look at.

This test was 6 min on the Temperature. was there data on how long it took to finally heat up to a less of a spread between the sprayed vs non-sprayed? What happens to the temperature spread after 1 hour or more ? Curious if you have that info?

I was thinking 3 layers in my van for travel above the arctic circle, Lizardskin, Spacetherm, Havelock wool. ohhh i had to edit.... I will Line-X the entire van too.

And now we know you don’t lock the door on M, W and F from 8-6 😂

Hello Nate and Steph- We appreciate your help. Question is if you are adding thinsulate and or reflectix over the lizard skin products in your build? I did not see in comments. Thanks Paul and Nina

Thanks for sharing. Like #5.

Is lizard skin safe on aluminum or do i do something first?

Can you do the peal and stick sound deadening and the ceramic insulation together?

Hey Nate i have an unrelated electrical question. I have purchased some cheap “5 pin Halo switches” i am hoping to use them as a three way switch. I would like to use two switches for one light source, is this possible? If so do you have a diagram or can you explain how to wire it? I would assume that this is possible, i have seen lots of vans with these style “halo switches” and would think some of them have to be 3 way switches. If not do you know specific brand or switch that looks like “5 pin halo switch” that is meant to be used as a 3 way switch. Thank you very much!

How will a thicker coat effect the results ? Wil double thickness double the thermal barrier?

Does this act as a vapor barrier as well

What’s the link to the thermal camera. I’d like to use it for testing for heated connections in my electrical system. Thanks

Hi, i know this was poated 2 years ago but i remembwr you saying that ypur going to install 3m thinsulate and wool over the lizard skin. Did you do that ? Im asking because i would like to do similar using dynomat and im wondering what needs to be installed first and if it sticks to lizard skin 🤔 thanks

Just curious, What happened to the Subaru Crosstrek project??? I just bought a 2016 amd was completely on board, now nothing! What gives?

How much I need for sprinte 170?

Hi there, may I ask what brand thermal imaging camera did you use?

🤔 What is the fire rating and toxicity of burning lizard skin?

No testing in real world conditions/ road noise? :(

Is it too late to do another sound test?

This is an incredible waste of time, money, and additional weight imo. Run of the mill foam insulation will do 100x better, add an additional couple of mm of foam to compensate for any minimal thermal benefit of the Lizard Skin. This totally boggles the mind. Having said that, love the channel.

Not using this product