Trojan Boat Forum

http://s869.photobucket.com/user/rickdo ... %20ceiling

For Bob and P-Dogg and anyone else doing their ceiling. Hopefully, these photos may show what I ended up doing. You can see in one photo where the foil is glued into place, before the headliner panel was installed. For the most part I left an air space between the glued insulation foil and the new headliner.

The headliner was a cream vinyl leatherette that I bought in a large roll from an upholstery shop.

I bought some luan hobby board in 4 X 8 sheets and cut it to fit the salon ceiling in the pattern I wanted.

Then I spray glued 3/8" foam to the luan panels

Finally, I cut and glued the leatherette to the foam after cutting it a little larger than the luan panels, in order that I might wrap the leatherette around each panel on all four sides, stretch it tight and then staple it to the reverse side. I stapled it every quarter inch.

I fastened the upholstered panels to 3" wide, 1/4" plywood strips that I'd already framed the ceiling with.

The fiberglass of the salon roof in very thick and good to screw into. I junked all the wiring and then re-wired the ceiling lights.

Since these photos were taken, the original teak trim panels by Trojan were re-installed around the perimeter.

That looks good. Can you tell me where you got the aluminum insulation and what you used for glue to hold it to the ceiling? Also, have you gone thru a summer yet to see if it helped your A/C?

Bob, I picked up the foil insulation at a local Home Depot store. I would think that these silver foil insulation rolls are readily available for you at most hardware stores. Certainly most HVAC suppliers will stock something similar.

I'm on my third summer since replacing the headliner and I believe the insulation has helped, but I have no real way to measure my success. I installed two brand new air conditioning units the following summer. It's quick to cool down now, but is it because of the new hardware or because of the insulation? I'm thinking probably a bit of both.

I will say this though, on really screaming hot days I could stand in the salon with the old headliner and feel the heat coming through on my head.

The fact that I doubled up the foil in most areas, then added the foam-clad hobby board upholstered panelling would simply have to help the air conditioning to some extent.

I spray glued the foil into place (it's very lightweight and about 1/4 inch thick) When shopping for the foil, you'll no doubt also find details available listing the qualities of the product. My stuff was listed as R-16, unaffected by humidity and provided a very high % (I forget the actual number) of preventative radiant heat transfer. Also no mould or mildew. So I figured it would be good on the boat.

The most difficult part of the whole job was screwing the upholstered panels into the ceiling because I did it alone. Even with a drywall jack, I had to be careful not to damage the panels. My bad shoulder ached for a couple of days.

It looks great in the pics Rick. The foil sounds like a great idea. I plan to try it. I bought regular vented headliner material to replace the old stuff.

I think my A/C losses performance as the water gets really warm at dock toward the end of the summer. The condenser might not be performing well with hot water as a heat exchanger. Just a thought.

Thx again.