I love the new Kombi rubber floors. They are warm and so squidgy that kneeling on them is a real pleasure (and trimming a van out is a killer on the knees). If you are having a Kombi van trimmed out as a day van, we’d always recommend keeping the standard rubber flooring. However, if you are having almost any other conversion undertaken, that’s exactly what we’d advise against.

If anything is to be bolted to the floor, then the soft squidgy rear mat becomes a nightmare. It will deform and create hollows in which water and mud will sit, so that you’ll never get things clean and the standing water will rot the cupboards and corrode fittings.

To safely fit a RIB rear seat/bed or our cupboard system, we need a structurally strong base on which to work, which is why we remove and replace all flooring when undertaking a full conversion. Even if it is already boarded out, the ply is likely to be too thin anyway.

So it’s best to start from scratch when it comes to floors. We start by installing a number of carefully cut spacers that ensure that the overall floor will be level, given that the metal floor underneath is ribbed and is therefore at 2 different heights. Then we install a thin foil backed styrene insulation layer onto which we fit a ply base layer. This is then topped off with a covering to the customer’s own specifications.

We’ve used a range of floor coverings in the past, from heavy duty one piece vinyls to individual vinyl floor tiles.

Through experience we have found that the best possible flooring is manufactured by Altro and we use Altro Xpress Lay, Altro Contrax and Altro Walkway. These are high quality safety floorings that offer slip resistance, great colours and an extremely hard wearing finish that stays looking good for years. This flooring has also achieved an A+ BRE Generic Green Guide Rating for Safety Flooring.
So whatever your chosen interior, we can make sure that it’s fit for purpose on a sound floor that looks great too.

The picture above shows a T5 which we’ve just completed. Work involved stripping the original paneling out, insulating and re-paneling the walls and trimming the vehicle out. The work included installation of a new floor covered in blue Altro. We also installed a couple of side windows with curtains, a leisure battery, LED lighting and 3 additional 12 volt sockets. Then after the photo was taken, we installed a triple RIB seat/bed. So it’s now a versatile van that will seat six, sleep two and carry a pile of gear on a tough and great looking floor.