Window Woes

[Ahkhira]

Last month, My little Sunline and I went camping at the (somewhat) local horse show. As usual, id decided to rain very hard all weekend long.

(OK, so maybe it doesn't ALWAYS rain all weekend, but it was just my lousy luck that it did rain for 2 days out of 3 AGAIN!)

Anyway, the rain was so horrible that I finally found the leak that was starting to wreak havoc on my 1985 T2100. It seems that both rear windows are leaking around the frame.

My first problem here is to convince my know-it-all husband that the frame itself is leaking and that shoving a piece of felt weatherstrip between glass and frame won't fix the leak. (That is the easy part.)

My second problem is what happens when I pull the window out of the frame and find some molded wood- and I know I will. I do know that rotted wood needs to be replaced, but I did catch this fairly early, and this isn't (OK,I'm hoping it's NOT) going to be a major repair of the nasty type. I am 99% confident that I caught the leak early enough that it can be fixed.

I know that the standard fix is to pull the entire window and frame, and scrape any old sealer and replace with new butyl tape. That I can do. I'm sure I'm going to find that at least 2 inches at the lower corner of the window frame got quite wet though. Is there anything I should do to the wet part, or just dry it out and hope for the best? Also, I've heard that these jealouise (?spelling) windows will never seal.

Anybody have any tricks for me?
Thanks in advance,
Jen

[mainah]

The good part cross grain wood does not soak up water near as well as end grain. If it still feels hard or looks bright it can most likely just be dried out. A fan would help speed things up. If it's been leaking for a good while it's going to be down inside where you can't see it and most likely the fiberglass will be good and wet too.

[Ahkhira]

Good news- the leaky windows were not that bad, and totally salvageable. After 3 weeks under tarp, the surrounding wood was just a little bit more aged than it should have been- no disgusting mold, no horrible smell, and even better, no spongy wood.

This mess did result in a trip to the nearest excellent RV dealer. Flagg RV is 40 minutes from me, and always has butyl tape and plenty of other goodies on the shelf. If anyone needs them , here they are: Flagg RV | RV Dealer Massachusetts, Rhode Island l West Boylston And Uxbridge, MA RV Sales |

Perhaps the most interesting part of my day was explaining to the hardware store idiot that NO, I did not want 2 cheap galvinized screws, but about 80 stainless steel bolts so that I could hold my windows in tight... The guy in the hardware store actually tried to tell me I had no idea what I was doing. I hate to say it, but next time I re-seal one of these windows, my husband is going after the replacement bolts before I punch the hardware guy out.

Anyway, I ran out of daylight, but I'll water test the mess in the morning.

Once again, THANK YOU SUNLINERS for the help!!!