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Old 06-07-2017, 12:21 PM   #1
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2004 T1950 Restoration Project - (Ugly Picture Heavy)

Hi Everyone,

This spring I acquired a new “Project Camper”. It is a 2004 T1950 which seemed to find me, and after looking at the pics of it, it founds it’s way to our home where I wanted to create a project camper out of it and restore it to its full Sunline glory. It seems to be a hit with my family as they want to use it to go camping in Well maybe next year as there is “a bit of work” yet to do on it before we go camping in it…. You will see what I mean shortly.

This post has some general pics of the day we brought it home. http://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f6...950-17513.html

This post will be picture heavy and contain some real ugly looking pictures of what a water infection can do to a camper. I enjoy doing this kind of work as a hobby and we can make all that ugly go away in time. This camper is a perfect camper restore project as the prior owners really enjoyed their Sunline and kept it up as best they knew how to. The inside is in really great shape and the outside does not have large abuse damage other than sun damage.

This camper restore project will hopefully help our Sunline Club members learn about how a camper gets a water infection, what is involved in fixing them if they want to take on a repair of this size and learn about RV roof systems in general along with the needs of up keeping our camper roofs. Since the pictures will be plentiful, we can also learn about how Sunline built our campers. While some of the methods have changed over the years, the methods are not that much different for what we call a “Stick and Tin” camper. The outer structure is wood and the siding is aluminum. This is a very good combo as long as a water infection does not happen in which is still the case in the newer aluminum framed campers. This combo of stick and tin makes it fairly easy with standard wood working tools to rebuild the entire camper if needed.

The project will more than likely take me over a year to complete as right now I am only taking the camper apart to let it dry out. Then come winter time, I will start the rebuild as we have a bit much already planned for this year and camping in our T310SR Sunny yet to do . This will also give me time to order materials and get them in advance.

There is also a learning on moisture meters and how they can help when inspecting a camper for water damage you cannot see, but may be inside the camper walls, floors or ceiling. This post deals primarily with the project camper restoration however I will be using the the moisture meter in the restoration process. By using the moisture meter you can see the insides of the camper. This thread goes into more details of moisture meters.
http://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f7...per-17613.html

My goal from the outcome of this restore post is to later create a thread dedicated to how to inspect a camper for water damage all by itself from parts of this project and others who have learned about water damage along the way. This seems to be a common theme lately on how to know if you have a water problem and how big is it.

I will also be tracking the work hours and material costs more closely so I can keep track and folks can see what time it takes to do these kind of repairs and if they want to tackle such a thing. It also helps when you go to a repair facility to understand why this costs so much to do this repair. This is a labor intensive project and the charge out rates of shop time can easily be $65 to $120/hr pending the shop. For those of use doing this ourselves, well it is a labor of love for sure…

So on with the show. Thanks for looking and any comments and questions along the way, just ask.

Thanks

John
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Old 06-07-2017, 12:25 PM   #2
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This first part is about what I saw and found before we started into the disassembly process. The prior owner last camped in the unit in 2010. They has taken it across country twice I think and circumstances arose they had to sell their truck and store the camper. A local RV dealer had a storage yard and this is where it was stored since 2010 when we picked it up.

The prior owner told me in 2014 the camper it had a leak in the back that showed up inside. They thought it was the rear window and put some tape on the top of it outside. They also hired someone to look at the roof and they caulked it and the leak stopped showing up inside. The owner went to check the camper every month and had 8 damp ride containers inside all the time to absorb any dampness to keep the camper from getting musty. There were no must smells in the camper when we picked it up, so it worked. Knowing how campers get water infected, I knew full well what I could be getting into. By the time a leak shows up inside from a roof leak, a lot of time could of gone by with a leak in the ceiling, a wall then then into the bottom of the camper. No repairs were made other than the roof caulk.

Once it was home I had more time to inspect the camper. I found evidence of the Dicor caulking work on the rear roof seam, the shower dome and a few other areas. I could tell this work was done several years back by the age of the caulk and it seems to like up with the 2014 time frame. This was reported to have stopped the leak and no water inside was found up to the day we took it.

Here are some pics of the roof. I could tell the caulk job it didn’t work right. We cleaned the back area of the back wall seem and put Gorilla tape over the bad area to help stop any more water from getting in until we can take it apart. I also did a front seam that looked suspect.






Here I can tell the water infection is not good. Look at the triangle shaped gray material under the roof line end molding. That gray material is putty tape exposed and the roof molding has literally released from the roof. The roof rafter must be rotted enough so the screws let go. There is also no gutter end spout. Water is flying out of the gutter right into the corner seam. Not good.






Up on the roof, there was the tire tube rubber band feel in that rear right corner. This feels just like a tire inner tube and a rubber band effect. The standard Sunline rubber roof is soft by not like this rubber band tire tube effect. It is hard to capture in pics so I used a straight edge to show the amount of deflection of the rubber. The bud board roof support material is deteriorated in this area.


The shower dome has issues too. The caulking is very dried up on the original and the repair person put some more Dicor on this area back in 2014 supposedly. The tire tube rubber band effect was also in this area.


Here is what bad caulk looks like. And the Dicor patching did not work right. They did something wrong as I can peel it up, it is not bonded correctly.
The left side rear corner seam by the shower dome




The shower dome






I can tell this roof has not been serviced since new other than the 2014 time frame patching. The caulking is all dried out and split. The rubber is crystallized from lack of cleaning and sun exposure. There is an algae slim growing on the roof when I tried to wash it off to put the Gorilla tape on.

And there is sludge in the gutter. They must of stored the camper nose high. They used a fork lift when we picked up the camper to move them around. Common practice at a dealership, hook onto the ball, lift and go. The tongue jack must have been high or the camper on a hill and this allowed the majority of the water to run off the back of the camper beating into the rear roof seam.

Here is the sludge in the gutter rail. None at the front and building in depth on an angle heading towards the back of the camper. This is just roof dirt built up with water creating sludge over time and not being cleaned.






An inspection area where you can get to the roof attic is the shower steam dome, at least in this model years campers. I took the inside steam dome down and you can see the roof. There was also water stains in the shower something was laying wet and evaporated out as it left a discolored ring of debris.

You can see the water mark staining and the wet bud board from the roof


The dome screws. Heavy rusted screws like this comes from high moisture in the area


The water meter on the roof rafter. The insulation must be soggy.



Then the shower walls. This meter can see through the shower surround.
Middle of the rear wall. 37%


Up high in the left rear corner.


About 8” down the center of left side wall


And about 18” down the center of left side wall it stops


The ceiling just outside the shower at 0%


And the ceiling a little ways from the wall, now at 74%. The wet must be very localized here or there is a 2 x 4 or something in the attic creating a separation. Will find out soon when we take it apart.


Now to over in the bedroom area above the bad right rear corner.
The ceiling over the bed on the right rear corner area. 100%


Right at the edge of the overhead cabinet above the bed, 100%


About 3 feet away from the right rear corner at the top of the wall. 63%


Inside the overhead cabinet above the bed. 55%


Above the right side bedroom window. 100%


The center of the rear wall above the bed in the overhead cabinet 100%


Half way down the wall in the right rear corner over the bed near the bottom of the rear window. 100%


Now to under the camper. All water goes down by gravity. The only thing to stop it, is it runs out of enough water to stop flowing or it reaches something that will not let it flow by gravity any more. A wall, a floor or more so, the Darco waterproof membrane under the camper makes a water trap or a pond. Once it is down under the floor there is no way out. The insulation just holds it and he Darco will not let it drain out.

The entire back part of the camper shows wet on the Darco up to the axles.
By the rear stabilizer jacks area


Just in front of the axles. 90%


Here are a few pics of the inside. It is in nice shape




We started taking the camper apart and I have 3 days’ worth of work yet to post. More yet to come. Should have it up soon.

Thanks for looking.

John
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Current Sunlines: 2004 T310SR, 2004 T1950, 2004 T2475, 2007 T2499, 2004 T317SR
Prior Sunlines: 2004 T2499 - Fern Blue
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Old 06-07-2017, 02:25 PM   #3
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Subscribing, can't wait to see how correct the moisture meter is!

Do you have it inside now?
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Old 06-07-2017, 03:28 PM   #4
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Here is Day 1. My son Ben came over to help get started. Since we did a similar repair a year ago to his camper, we both have been through this and could go to town on taking the roof and back wall apart. I will do this mostly in pics to help keep the typing down.

Here is the camper in the barn ready to start taking it apart.




A roof shot


Rear wall


We knew the back corners were wet and the front right corner was suspect. I needed to make a call on, do we take the whole roof off or just the back half?
The whole roof


Here is the back.




Took the Gorilla tape off. The cleaner looking caulk if from me cleaning it trying to get the Gorilla tape to stick.


I could peel right up the Dicor patch from 2014 with ease. This is not good… It should be one solid patch that takes great effort to get up all the way to the rubber. Something was not applied correctly.




Then I went to the suspect front area. The front seam.


Peeled the Gorilla tape off. Not good either but not as bad as the back








And here is some dried up, split caulk on the gutter rail seam. Not good either. This caulk is the original from Sunline and there is no touch ups on it anywhere then the 2014 work that is questionable. On a roof that is this old and if it was maintained quarterly, a roof should have many touch up's of the caulk or complete sections removed and redone. There were none. Odds are high no one ever explained to the owners how they should properly maintain the roof as they kept the rest of the camper spotless. This seems to be a common thing, good folks just not knowing they need to properly maintain their RV roof and what that involves. Hopefully we can help this problem on our forum.


The rubber itself was not in good shape and the back wall area was really bad. Lack of washing, no UV protectant and the lack of any caulking work done (other than the suspect 2014 caulking) was not in this roof’s favor. There was an algae on the roof that I could not get any good moisture meter reading anywhere (all was 90% or higher) also played on my mind. And I could not seem to clean it off either to get a good reading. I did not try a bleach kill but no cleaner would touch it. I know what a roof change involves, and not much was adding up as being good about this roof. I made the call, it’s coming off.

We started with taking the awning off. The fabric is gone from sun damage as expected. We can take the entire awning off pretty easy.

There are 2 small screws that hold the fabric from sliding front to back that come out first.


Sometimes they corrode in place and you have to use vise grips to get them out as they do not want to unscrew easy. They just sit and spin.


You take the lower mounting brackets off and let the leg down to the floor.


Look at the lag bolts, rust and rot shows up where too. Oddly they were not that bad in the back on the bottom.


Then you look which way you are going to take the awning off. The front or the back. There is normally a swell or opening in the gutter rail where the awning slides in place. Look for that and that is normally the easier side to slide it out. In our case, out the back was easier as the gutter drip spout was not on.


Then take the top 2 lag screws out each end bracket. You might need to unroll the awning a small amount, not much but a little to not be so tight to the camper. And look at those lag screws too.
Also odd these rear ones are not as bad I would of thought.


Once all the bolts are out, a partner and you just walk the whole thing right off in one large piece. Lift a awning arm/leg and walk it out.


And it’s gone


Then to take down the AC unit. Start on the inside.






There are 4 bolts that hold the AC on, you take those 4 off and unplug the electrical connection and a frost control if it has one and off the roof unit comes. We had a surprise on this one. One of the 4 roof bolts was backed out about 1”… This is not really good. Must of vibrated out since the install.


Then to get the unit off the roof.
Ladder and plank prepped


Roof prepped to stand on


Lift and move over to the edge


AC unit unmounted


AC unit off the roof


Next was all the rest of the items mounted on the roof. Started with the rear roof vent
Dig out the caulk over the screws


Apply some heat to the flange


Get the scraper under one end, more heat and pull



And we have some wet bud board under the vent.


See here how good butyl tape holds up. This was put down in Sept 2003. It is still flexible and not all dried out and cracked. Not like putty tape. More on that later.




Now to the shower dome. Here is what bad caulk looks like. Not good. Dried up and cracked.






You start by digging up the caulking. When you see rusted headed screws under the caulking, that is not a good sign. In this case they rusted from the bottom up. Meaning the wicked water up from the wet insulation and bud board.






This site is, “not good”




Here is another issue with shower domes, they crack at the screws from too much point pressure. I have found a way using large stainless fender washer to help this problem. These cracks can grow from towing down the road and the camper twisting and have the crack and run gone across the dome like they did on my T310SR. Then you have large leak potential.


Start with the heat gun


Then putty knife up one corner


More heat and push the putty knife


And off it comes.


And more wet bud board


Then the black tank vent. H’mm something not right here. Sunline cut the pipe short or it dropped down into the tank. Have to check the tank out.




Then to start taking the left rear corner molding off. The 2014 Dicor peeled right off. Something not right with this.


Sure enough, we see dirt under the 2014 Dicor. They did not clean the old caulk well before putting new on. Number one, No No on adding new caulk. You have to clean and prep the old caulk.
You can see the black dirt line


The rubber has almost deteriorated. It is brittle and cracked open when removing the caulk.


Gutter rail screws coming out with total goo on them. They will not even unscrew, just spin. Rotted wood behind it.




Now for the next eye opening experience. Removing the vinyl strip over the gutter rail screws. I really do not like this design and most all RV's use it. This is not a Sunline only thing. Water gets behind the vinyl and over time the screw heads rust and become water wicks. Mold and other yuk grows behind it. See this. I was shocked it was this bad.






For reasons not known, this corner molding has twice the number of screws in it. Someone added a lot of extra screws. Do not know who or why.


And they are longer than the standard screws. And in this case, filled with rot goo.


Now to the right rear side. The bad corner. This corner had the new 2014 caulk on it that peeled up and not bonded to the original like it should be. This pic


And a closer shot. Look at all the dirt under the 2014 caulk. Again not cleaned before applying the patch repair caulk.


More dirt under the caulk 2014 caulk


All screws in the rear corner molding are heavily rusted and goo’ey


Here is the molding off. The rubber has appeared to have shrunk. Maybe when it separates from the bud board being soaked the rubber stretches down and pulls out under the end wall molding? Don’t know for sure.




I will break this 1st day into 2 replies to shorten the loading time length. More to come!
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Current Sunlines: 2004 T310SR, 2004 T1950, 2004 T2475, 2007 T2499, 2004 T317SR
Prior Sunlines: 2004 T2499 - Fern Blue
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Old 06-07-2017, 05:29 PM   #5
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Continuation on Day 1 progress.

Here is removing the left corner molding. Start with the heat gun again and pull light pressure.


More heat and keep lifting up the corner


And it’s off


Now to the right side gutter rail. Same issue here with crud behind the vinyl strip


And more crud all the way down the camper and deteriorated caulk on the top of the gutter rail seam. Not good.


The butyl sealing tape is still good behind the gutter in this area. It does not look like water came down the top gutter rail seam where the bad caulking with splits are. Time had not advanced enough yet for this area water intrusion but rusted screws as water wicks for sure possible.


Bud board is water soaked on this rear corner area.


This is a little further down the camper


Caution: Ugly pics ahead… This is a sight we have seen before but it always looks bad and smells worse…

Peeling back the roof starting from the back rolling forward. This is the rubber tire tube rubber band effect. The water has deteriorated the glue and the bud board leaving the rubber to stretch like a rubber band.


Folding over the remnants of the bud board. A sheet of luan over the insulation that is totally deteriorated.


Lifting up the luan


Lifting the insulation


Rolling the bud board forward






The left rear corner. The shower area.


Taking out the insulation






The right corner with the insulation up


Starting on the rear wall


Take windows, lights, cargo hole door and HW heater


Floor under HW heater wet


Cargo hole opening where a shoe is pointing to the wet stained area. The foot just happened to show up at the right time…


Top of the rear window opening, very wet


Half the siding off. The bottom black Darco membrane is folded up pretty high.


Last piece of siding to come off










We now moved to get the rest of the front of the roof off. I want to point out the front corner molding dirt behind the molding. This dirt only gets into this area when the putty tape separates from the molding leaving an opening for water intrusion.




If you look close, you can see the black dirt all the way across the gray putty tape. This is a flaw of putty tape over time. It dries out, cracks, shrinks and separates from what it is attached to.

The front gray tank vent with the pipe sticking up as it should.




The fridge vent is off too.

The radio antenna




The front roof vent. There is a history to these model 2004 roof vents. Sunline changed suppliers during this model year. They metal rusted badly. Max Air Covers where over both of these vents thankfully. When I bought my new 2004 T2499 in Nov. 2004 Sunline was still in business then. After me owning the camper 3 months rust started running across the roof. I call Sunline, sent then pics and they sent me 3 new vents and caulk to replace them and I did. Then I bought a 2004 T310SR in 2007, Sunline was out of business by then and I had to replace those 3 myself. Now I have 2004 T1950 and I have to replace these 2 myself. Seems I have a thing for 2004 Sunlines and vents….

The front rusted so bad there was a hole in it. See the hole of daylight near the middle bar of the vent




The roof antenna with more examples of bad caulk.




Now to take up the front seam


And the molding lifted. This area does not look that bad. Unknown until we lift the roof off.




Before I lifted the roof off I wanted to do some more moisture meter checks to see how the meter reacts with this specific roof in the condition it is in.

I started at the antenna area and not that it was off, it created a large space of new roof not exposed to the weather and the algae slim in the roof. I tested the moisture meter on it.
This spot reads 8%


This spot reads 3%


3 inches away on the same roof, read 83%


I also tried this same test back at the shower dome area on the rear roof vent that was wet before we lifted up the rubber. Here the meter reads 71% on non-algae rubber under the vent that is wet on the back side.


And here it reads 91% on the algae rubber


Here is the meter on the front flap of new roof on the front wall before the roof molding. 0%


Here is the front seam on the algae rubber. 77%


Here is a cleaned spot with Awesome on the roof from 3 weeks ago and dried in the sun. It tests 89%


The meter right next to the clean spot on the main roof, 94%


And in the same area, on the piece of rubber under the AC unit that was still new. 10%


A bigger pic so you can see where this test was done in relation to the roof


And at the back where the bad water leak was on the right rear corner 85%


The meter can detect a wet roof as I had a fellow forum member use the MM8 meter on her 2005 camper she was buying and she could easily spot the wet area and the dry area. This roof did not appear to have the algae issue with it. On my T310SR which was made in Nov. 2003 everything I check is 0% on the roof. Yet this T1950 made in Sep. 2003 had all of its exposed to the weather roof at high readings even if the roof under it is dry. It seems whatever this algae or mold is, that is really into the rubber and has affected the meter. This is to be understood that it can trick the meter on a non- maintained roof but it is still a good tool.

Now to rolling the rest of the roof off.


H’mm, Sunline missed this spot of insulation?




The front right corner had the start of a leak by the front seam area. Caught this one just in time.


The rubber staples show rust a good ways across the roof in this area.


The front left corner had a faint spot of water stain. This leak was in its infancy stages. It appeared around the screw holes


Here is a roof shot with the rubber off

Here is the roof laying out in the barn yard. We can measure it easier here.


And the rubber band tire tube area on the back wall.


Now to the back wall and yank out the insulation and inspect further. Here is the insulation out and the Darco membrane folded down.




Some close up areas










This completes Day 1 of the repair.
6/4/17, 2 workers for 5.5 hours = 11 labor work hours
11 labor work hours to date on total repair
$0.00 in materials.

Now onto getting day 2 and Day 3 pics up. I was the only one working on those days so the progress will be less.

Thanks for looking.

John
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Current Sunlines: 2004 T310SR, 2004 T1950, 2004 T2475, 2007 T2499, 2004 T317SR
Prior Sunlines: 2004 T2499 - Fern Blue
2005 Ford F350 Lariat, 6.8L V10 W/ 4.10 rear axle, CC, Short Bed, SRW. Reese HP trunnion bar hitch W/ HP DC

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Old 06-07-2017, 07:32 PM   #6
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Work Day 2

Today was targeting getting the siding off on the right side of the camper as I knew we had wet wood on the rear bedroom side.

Taking siding off is a job in undoing what seems like a zillion staples… It is somewhat slow going. Pull up a chair and go at it…. The more you perfect your staple pulling, it helps ease the job. And then there are some staples shot so deep you end up with a rip out of the siding the size of the staple. As long as it does not spread much beyond the staple size, you can work around it when putting new staples back in and the rip out is not a problem. Try and avoid long rips/tear of the siding at the staple area as this does not leave you with metal to staple back on.

I was working on the door side and had to pull all the windows, lights and entry door at least up past the entry door.


The smaller non slide campers of this era used plastic fender wells. The siding has a lot of staples over the wheel well. And they use silicone to seal the fender to the camper. Have to rethink this as it falls right off.




Here is the process I have adapted. It is about the 3rd generation of the fix by now and I’m sure will go to a higher revision as time goes on. If anyone has tricks they want to share of their method or ideas untested, please share.

I start with a high quality steel screw driver with a blade size just under the width of the staple. The better steel does not deform like the lower quality screw drivers do after beating on it all day long.


You put it to the edge of the staple and tap it under. Some times you to have to wiggle it under one corner of the blade to get it started if the staple is deep in the siding.


Once the head is out about 1/8” or more, you grab it with nip cutting pliers and yank or pivot pull it out. Do not squeeze too hard or you will cut the staple.




In some cases you cannot pry on the screw driver as you will bend the siding, in these cases I twist the screw driver 90 degrees once under the staple to leave enough staple out to bite onto with the nipper pliers.




And sometimes you need to use the screw driver and nipper pliers to yank like this. The screw driver holds the staple and the nippers pull the screw driver


The bottom gold siding is stapled on the bottom of the camper shooting up. Here corrosion at the staple seems very high. All of these behind the fender where rotted out holding nothing. Some with holes in the siding, others the staple rusted off. When I put this back on, I will Dicor the heads of the staples to stop the road spray from accelerating this corrosion.






Have some camper floor and floor joist rot going on


Here is the next piece up. Goes over the top of the fender. Where there are cutouts in the siding, (most all pieces) be careful when removing the siding as the sheet will buckle real easy in those cutout thinner width areas.


A tip if you are taking a lot of siding off a side, pencil mark the bottom of each row of siding. This will help when you go to put it back on. All the cutouts have to line back up and if you are off a little on each sheet, the error grows by the time a few sheets go on. By having the lines, you have a target to shoot to.


Higher up the wall


Up to the gold


I have noticed the decal strip of siding and the upper gold siding is thinner. The staples rip out easier and they are harder to get the screw driver under the staple. So I measured the main siding and the decal strip.

The decal siding is 0.015” thick. Sunline use to roll this sheet from flat. They put the decal on and then ran the sheet through their roll and pressure formed the decal on and the ripple of the siding at the same time. This “might” be why this sheet is thinner. That is only one theory on it being thinner. More below.


The white siding has Krystal Kote on it for making it scratch and dent resistant and is thicker and the staples pull out easier. Or shall I say I can get under the staple with the screw driver easier. This is 0.022” thick


What I do not know, is the metal thicker, the Krystal Kote adds 0.007” of thickness or a little of both?

I was able to flex the front gold out of the upper sheet to leave that small area in front of the door installed.
Take out all the staples on the white that are exposed




The gold piece is narrow in height and makes this harder to do. Going one piece down into the wider white siding makes it easier. When both ends of the siding are free from corners or doors etc. you can flex the siding in the center to pop it of the sheet above. Then you reach down in and pull the few staples out of the upper piece and remove it. If this is your first time doing this, suggest to start on the wider white piece just below it. Much easier to flex it out and get the staples out on the piece above.




Now the exposed back wall




And with the insulation out.










As you can see the whole corner is shot and some of the wall studs and sill. The wall board I do not know if I can Rot Dr resin save it or not. I may need to go to new luan plywood and bond commercial wall paper onto it. We shall see.

I tested out the moisture meter on this side as it was still wet enough to get readings. Water droplets came off the insulation. Here are some pics of the moisture reading next to the back side wetness to help give a feel for what % of moisture on this meter looks like what behind the wall.

I started with this square'ish area on the left of the window. See the 2 x 3 block of wood there.


I held the meter inside the wall and pressed the hold button on the meter which locks the reading in so take a reading and then you can pull the meter away and read it. It reads 91% inside.


I am now holding that reading taken a second time which is 92% next to the outside area so you can see that area was 92%. The 1% difference is that when I took 2nd reading I was not in the exact same place. I was fiddling with the camera on the first reading of 91%.


I followed that same process, take a reading inside, put the meter in hold and then go to the outside and take a pic to show the wetness inside the wall cavity with the reading taken inside the camper. See these pic areas.






These readings may have dried out a little from the day before when the back wall was opened up. They were closer to 100% before we took the walls apart. The point of this test was to show what above 80% looks like. It’s all bad. I have not yet figure out where the low end point is that while wet, its not bad, yet. At this point 10% of scale on this meter (not 10% of moisture) is not much wetness. I just have to refine this a little between 10% and 80%.

This completes Day 2 of the repair.
6/5/17, 1 workers for 5 hours = 5 labor work hours
16 labor work hours accumulated to date on the total repair
$0.00 in materials.

Work day 3 yet to come
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Old 06-07-2017, 09:01 PM   #7
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Work Day 3

Today’s goal was to deal with the left side as the shower had wall studs questionable if they were good or not. I looked and looked at the shower and we still had high readings in the wall a foot or more in from the end of the camper. I was questioning myself, do I really need to take this entire side off for those few feet of shower? After beating up the decision in my head, I came to the conclusion, do it right, take the siding off and you will know for sure you found all the shower damage. So here we go.

This starts out with taking everything out of the side of the camper. This was not really extra work as I had planned on pulling everything and replacing the putty tape with butyl anyway. So here we are, all items out.




This bathroom window has real bad seal with missing putty tape around the outside. There was a wet reading under it and this may be the reason. A putty tape leak.




Well, my gut instinct paid off. The furnace seal had a leak


The fridge cover had a leak


The electric cord door had a leak


The front cargo hole door had a leak


The way the siding is put on, the sides go on first then the front and rear. I could not take the left side off until the front was removed…. OK here we go with the front. Again this turned out to be a good thing other than the time to do it.

After the first 2 pieces I pulled off, yup there are signs of a widow leaking down. You can see the rusted staples on the first wall stud in on the left.




Pull the front window out and, yup, leaks on both ends…. Here is the left side, the worst one






This window leak is a putty tape failure. Look at the dirt on the siding near the lower right of the pic window corner. The dirt is all the way across the sealing flange. If dirt is there, there is no seal.


Here is the window with the putty tape still on. I had to shear some of the putty tape getting the window off, but you can still see dirt stains on the inside of the window where water can leak in that putty tape seal breach.


The putty knife is pointing to one of the seal breaches.


Here is the insulation rolled back, you can see the mold build up


Here is the whole front with the siding off


Here is the leak on the right side corner.


And… a right side corner leak. This was a putty tape seal breach in the corner.


You can see dirt has totally penetrated the corner seal on both sides. The putty tape dried, cracked and shrunk pulling away from the corner molding. Dirt blown by the wind or towing along with water beating in that opening is how you can get a corner molding leak. Or any leak in a flange seal of a door, window etc.




Here is the same thing going on in the left camper side corner




It the case above on the left camper side, while dirt marks are there, it does yet mean there is a leak. It means there is a hole to the inside of the camper. As long as water is not pushed into the hole, there is no water leak in. It is all about luck, good or bad. Since the camper sat for 6 ½ years in storage and trailer nose high, water luckily did not beat against this seam. If the camper was being towed in the rain to a campsite or stored trailer nose down, then water had high probability of getting in and this turns into bad luck…

Now to the left side siding… You start with the bottom gold. Here in front of the axle, the staples are still intact. You can also see the earth ground wire to the camper siding.


Here is the furnace seal leak


Look at the siding witness marks. The furnace was not centered in the hole when installed. The top right corner has less sealing area then the left. And it was sealed with putty tape. There is a dirt trace mark in the upper right corner of the pic, right above the leak. I am calling this one a putty tape seal breach.


Here is the front cargo hole door. The wood is wet stained on the top suggesting a putty tape seal leak. This leak was early in it’s development. Not much leaked in yet.


Here is the electric cord door leak. This area had wet and dry rot. For dry rot it took a while for this one. This is not a new leak but old that partly dried and left the fungus behind to create dry rot.

Here is the fridge compartment leak. Again look at the dirt witness lines on the access door seal especially at the corners.


A putty tape seal failure with dirt all the way across the seal area


And the water stain marks on the left and right of the fridge access cover.


Here is the whole left side of the camper with the siding off.


Here is the bathroom window with a seal leak at the bottom of the widow. This lines up with the missing putty tape seem before we pulled the window and explains the wet readings below the window


Here is the left rear corner


And here is why we had high readings in the top of the shower




This was a 60% reading in the back left inside corner of the shower


That tapers about 1 foot in 48%


And down to 3% buy the edge of the shower door.


This all aligns with the wet seen on the outside top of the wall. I would say we now know what 60% and 41% of scale looks like and it is still too wet for me.

Here are some more shower readings to compare to the outside wall pics of this area

The shower stall in the center but down about 1 foot. 41%


The shower stall down about 1.5 feet down. 14%


The bath area wall next to the window and the shower. 0%


At the mid point of the window. 0%


Next was to unwrap the Darco off the camper rear left floor joist area. Once I cut the plastic I ended up with a whiff of fresh wood rot smell. WOW, yuk. This one was still real wet.




So I went to the right side and cut that Darco open. WOW a super whiff of wood rot smell there too….yuk!








Seeing this floor area wetness, I needed to go inside and see if I can map the floor on where the wet from the top side is spread across. What I suspect is, all the back wall water came down and landed under the camper in the floor system where it cannot get out. I know it is in there, just do not know bad it is yet. Here is the top of floor mapping.

The bath floor between shower and toilet at the left wall end. 70%


The shower about 2 to 3 feet from the wall at the shower stall. 43%


The bath floor at the entrance door. 22%


At the end of the door swing out in the bed room. 10%


About 1.5 feet away from the shower door swing. 5%


The spot between the bathroom and the bed frame 52%. The moisture is going up as we enter the right bed room side.


Over the HW heater area. 72%


About 1.5 feet away from the last HW heater reading towards the front. 52%


Under the bed about 2 feet in from the rear wall. 50%


The end of the bed in the middle of the camper. 1%


A mapping of the readings placed on a pic. The only reading not shown is the 70% by the camper left wall next to the toilet and the shower stall.


I will point out, the leaks on the camper left side which are, windows, furnace, water heater and electric cord, the repair to them at this point is fairly easy and straight forward. The wood is still sound but needs to be treated with Rot Dr to kill the dry rot fungus. All the opening flange seals will be redone with high quality butyl tape and then Dicor non leveling caulk as a secondary seal. This is easy work now that the siding is off. The back of the camper needs wood reconstruction and is more involved.

The next phase of work yet to come deals with how to do the rear floor area so we can open it up and let it dry out. It was amazing how much the rear wall dried out in 2 days when the camper was opened up and the air can get to it. We need to get the floor to that point also.

This completes Day 3 of the repair and all work done to date.
6/6/17, 1 worker for 6.5 hours = 6.5 labor work hours
22.5 labor work hours accumulated to date on the total repair
$0.00 in materials.

Thanks for looking. More to come as progress continues in the next few days.

John
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Old 06-08-2017, 07:54 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sunline Fan View Post
Subscribing, can't wait to see how correct the moisture meter is!

Do you have it inside now?
Hi Jon,

The moisture meter is panning out very well and proving to be a very good asset for a camper owner. Either buying a new used camper or maintaining your own it adds a lot of value knowing what is going on.

There are some things to learn about the meter and what can trick it. Do not trust it blindly but use it as a tool in figuring out what is possible and what can trick the meter. The roof algae thing is something the meter cannot read through, it goes to full scale as the algae/mold has moisture in it. But on a roof that is not all algee'ied up, it works well for finding wet spots.

Yesterday I found a copper wire blip in the wall. Meter went from 0% to 35% and back down to 0% in the course of moving the meter an inch or so. H'mm what is up with this? With the siding off, I can look on the back side and sure enough, 2 copper wires where heading to a body light. Having a small wet spot in the middle of a wall is not impossible, but you also need to know what can trick the meter to not trick you. A wet wall is wet in a lot of places, not just one blip in the middle.

So far 41% is the lowest number of what I have found that when a large area is reading ~ 40% or higher, that could be a pretty wet area of concern. It may be a number lower then this, but this is all I have documented and found to date. The camper is so wet, it is not hard to get to 40%. The dry areas are at 0% up to 5%. The more I search, the more I find and understand how this meter works and what the wet behind the walls,floors or ceiling looks like.

The camper is still inside and the camper box may be all the way until it is done. Have to rearrange the barn..... We need to deal with the floor yet and open it up. We are seriously thinking of lifting the camper box off the frame and pulling the frame out from under it. The camper is small enough this is doable with what I have to work with. This will make the frame restoration a breeze and allow us to get under the camper on the back end.

The black tank is right over the rotted floor area and the frame is there too. I can fix the floor rot I think easier working from the bottom up then the top down. I do not want to disrupt the shower stall it is in good shape but the floor under it may not be. I will most likely be dropping the black tank today and pulling the toilet and figure out next steps.

Stay tuned for more updates as they come.

Thanks

John
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Old 06-08-2017, 05:22 PM   #9
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John, thanks for taking the time to document all your work. I'm impressed with what you did on the second day by yourself in 5 hrs .......probably take me 8.

Can you explain how the roof is attached? I'm not very clear on that. Seems to me the bud board would get screwed to the rafters and then the EPDM would be glued to that?
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Old 06-08-2017, 10:30 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by johnnybgood View Post
John, thanks for taking the time to document all your work. I'm impressed with what you did on the second day by yourself in 5 hrs .......probably take me 8.

Can you explain how the roof is attached? I'm not very clear on that. Seems to me the bud board would get screwed to the rafters and then the EPDM would be glued to that?
Hi John,

Thanks for the good words. Much appreciated. I had hoped we can all learn something out of this rebuild... The more we know about our campers, the better.

The Sunline rubber roof. They would bond (glue) the rubber to the budboard sheet separate from the camper. Then once the glue was set, they hauled that mega sheet up onto the roof and placed it over the rafters.

All 4 sides of the sheet are screwed down. The long sides have the gutter rails sandwiching the budboard to the camper and on the ends, the front seam and the rear seam are screwed down. The board board cannot move anywhere and literally just lays on top of the rafters. This is how we where able to "roll up the roof" when we took it off. Undo all 4 sides and off it comes.

The concept made a light weight, strong enough roof to handle north east snow loads. It was actually an ingenious method. It works well if it stays dry. Once it gets wet, it is down hill and no turning back. Even normal plywood has issues if it gets wet, it rots. Thicker plywood might take longer before total failure and plywood does not wick water like the budboard does, but it all comes at a weight issue. The budboard roof is very light. Even if they used 1/8" luan to glue the rubber too, that melts (rots) real quick when wet.

When they did walk on roofs for special order, they put down 3/8 OSB and they screwed it to the rafters then glued the rubber to the OSB. Just like you said.

I "think" the reason they have to glue the rubber to the budboard separate off the camper is, compression of the rubber against the glue and budboard. The way these roof glues work, the rubber has to be in contact with the glue and the sub-straight. Down on the ground they can create that pressure bond to get the glue to the rubber and the sub-straight. Up on the camper, there is a bunch of air under the budboard allowing it to flex between the rafters. I do not think they could get the right compression for the glue to set right. I do not know this as fact, just thinking outload on why they have to do it on the ground.

The rubber is for sure bonded to the budboard in areas it is dry. I so far have not run into any air pockets of rubber and no bond. This air pocket thing can happen real easy on plywood roofing. You have to be darn sure the rubber gets compressed to the glue and the sub-straight or air pockets will form.

Thanks

John
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Old 06-09-2017, 08:36 PM   #11
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Progress update for work day 4.

I only had 2 hours on this day so no big things done but a lot of little ones. Had to mow the lawn, all 5 acres and fix my daughters lawn mower. Started with taking the bed area apart. All this was screwed down from the inside thankfully.

The bed area.






Cover off


Side partition off.


The water tank, pump, low point drains and the HW heater piping.






The low point drains just pull up out of a plastic sleeve. They where silicone in there to close up the hole


And a surprise! Not good. Glad I found this cracked fitting. This could of turned into a bit leak mess some time down the road.


These Flair-It fittings look like this. Odd the blue pipe is swaged more than the red one. I’m assuming this happened when it was installed and maybe why the blue one cracked.


This is what the sleeves look like stapled to the floor


The bed area all cleared out


The inside view of the fender well


I lifted up the floor tile in the HW heater corner to see what it looked like.


A very wet corner. If you looked there are 2 wires coming through the wall there. Well the water running down the inside of the wall came through that hole and followed the wires down to the floor. That may not be all of it, but part of it.


There is a wet spot on top by the shower wall


So I put the moisture meter on top of the dry part of the top of the floor. The meter still see a lot of something under the floor. 86% by the back wall.


52% about 2 feet in


More to do in this area yet.

Then I moved to the bathroom to take up the toilet.


There are 2, 1/4" bolts holding the toilet to the floor flange and then 2 large sheet metal screws in the back screwed into the floor. This is a Sealand china bowl toilet.


You take the pedal cover off and can unscrew the water supply hose. You push the button in the back of the pedal to get this side cover off.


Then lift the toilet right off. It comes up easy. There is a foam rubber sealing gasket, not a wax ring like at home. The foam gasket is off to the right of the pic.


From here all forward progress stopped… I took all the floor screws out of the flange and really did not know how the flange came off. I tried prying up thinking this was a rubber grommet setup into the tank as I saw cement on the top of the tank pipe. It just flexed and did not move. It was dinner time and this was the end of the day.

See this post for how I sorted out how to get the flange off. Toilet to Black Tank Connection - Need help

This completes Day 4 of the repair.
6/8/17, 1 worker for 2 hours = 2 labor work hours
24.5 labor work hours accumulated to date on the total repair
$0.00 in materials.
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Old 06-09-2017, 09:32 PM   #12
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Progress update for work day 5.

Today stated off getting the toilet flange sorterd out and taken out. This post shows that work Toilet to Black Tank Connection - Need help

From getting the flange up, I started doing some inspection in the floor area as there was a good sized hole into the floor cavity. The wood looked good, some kind of growth of something on the bottom side of the floor, but not heavy rotted wood.

Here is a pic of the growth of something on the bottom of the floor. It looks like a white algae something or a mold.


And I tried the meter next to this area as I could see the floor below was OK wood. The meter read 76%


OK, what is up with this? Something tricking the meter? So I reached in the through the pipe hole and felt around. Oh boy. The insulation had a lot of moisture on it. It was not sopping like a wet rag, more like wet cotton candy as a description. So I pulled out what I could reach. Yup, this is what the meter is seeing. The readings where all over. 50% to 96% depending on where placed the meter in the pile.


It goes to show how well this meter can pick this up. On top of the floor it looks down through the vinyl floor and the floor board into the insulation and found this for sure wet insulation but not a soaking wet mop. I continue to be impressed with this meter for use in checking a camper for a water infection. Just need to understand it’s limitations.

So I started on trying to take the shower wall out that is part of the door way. On the outside there was a floor to ceiling set of screws and on the roof there was the full wall length worth of screws. Some rusted real bad that the bit would strip in.
The back wall row of screws


The roof row of screws


I took all them out and I reached inside the shower faucet access panel and took 2 screws out into the floor with a 2 foot long blade screw driver handle. This was complex you could not get your head in to see what your were doing. An hour later the 2 screws were out. There was some screws in the door frame to the floor and I took them out. The wall moved but the cabinet above the bed was holding the wall big time. You can see the shower faucet hole here in this pic. It is about 7 x 7"


I did not get a pic of these cabinets during the removal, but this pic shows the camper before we started taking it apart and you can see the overhead cabinets above the bed.


These cabinets were mounted by screwing in the cabinet from the outside back wall, the right side wall, the cieling and later I found out, to the shower wall. This was a project…. The screws where rusted badly. Some had no bit socket left. I tried drilling the heads off with a colbalt bit. After 3 of them, the bit stopped working, just sit and spin. These square bit screws they use are from a good hardened steel. Since this wall board was in need of replacing I resorted to the 4 ½” grinder and ground the heads off. They have them every 4 inches… I tried a rotary stone in an air die grinder and it would not do much, the electric grinder had no issues with the head of the screw but it took wall board with it. This worked in my case as the wall board was bad anyway. This is a real problem if you are trying to save the wall board. Have to figure out a better way for the future. Anyone have any ideas?

After 2 ½ hours trying to get this cabinet out… I find out the cabinet from the inside of the cabinet floor cavity is screwed into the shower wall. These screws where not rusted but they were buried in the floor cavity of the cabinet. On the bottom of the cabinet is white ceiling with the 2 flood lights over the bed. Inside the cabinet there is a tan luan floor. This is about a 1” thick floor with a 3/4" inside air space cavity. In that air space cavity is these 3 screws. They installed the cabinet without the tan floor in it. They screwed the cabinet to the shower wall and then stapled the cabinet floor down. About 50 of those tiny staples all the way around the cabinet floor. I have removed those tiny staples before and it is not fun and you dig up the wood pretty good trying to get them out. So I opted for the brute force method and pulled the cabinet out of the wall. Cabinet is now out and on the wall is a 3/4 x 3/4” wood strip screwed to the wall. I sheared the tiny staples out of that end. I have some cabinet rebuilding to do on this one before putting it back in. Not a problem, just time.

Here is the cabinet out.




The need/goal is to get that shower wall out that is part of the bathroom door way so I can get to the back side of the shower. I have the floor and ceiling loose but the rafters are pressing down hard on the wall. Maybe water warp down pressure on the rafters? A project for another day. At this time, it was day’s end and dinner time. More for tomorrow.

This completes Day 5 of the repair.
6/9/17, 1 worker for 6 hours = 6 labor work hours
30.5 labor work hours accumulated to date on the total repair
$0.00 in materials.

Thanks for looking.

John
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Old 06-09-2017, 10:38 PM   #13
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Hi JohnB,

I like that floor plan. It is amazing what can be done with an extra 4 feet. The front didn't look too bad. Will be following. This is interesting stuff. I look forward to seeing the repairs. Still learning and this helps a lot.

Thanks,
Tommie
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Old 06-10-2017, 12:24 AM   #14
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Old 06-10-2017, 09:53 PM   #15
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Progress update for Day 6.

Today my son came over to help. We managed to get the camper apart enough to allow the wet floor to start drying out.

We started with reviewing what to do with the shower wall and how to get it out so we could get to the wet insulation under the floor. After reviewing many options on the shower wall, they did not turn up any good ideas to not have to damage the good wall board that was in place.

We went to the back side of the camper behind the shower and took a look at this area from the back wall and the left side wall, both which already had water damage.

We cut into the shower base area to have a look. The luan was rotted away at the base so we have nothing to lose, it needed to be repaired.








The floor in the left rear corner is bad. However there is also a shower trap access compartment in this corner that is boxed off about a 1ft x 1 ft hole. This access hole stopped the floor rot from getting under the shower very much on the left rear corner. Looking at this level of damage at this point, we decided to put the shower wall move on hold and try going in the left side floor side to access the wet insulation and go floor top down in the bed room area.

We started into the bedroom by taking up the vinyal flooring in a manner we can save it and put it back in later. We brought the bed compartment side back in to mark an outline on the floor. This will allow us to create a splice under the compartment side and not see the seam.


Marked off and cut the flooring tile.


Rolled up and removed the flooring tile.


Then we marked off and cut the OSB flooring. We took this out in 2 pieces for easier handling. First piece out on the back wall end.


All wet insulation


The second piece of flooring out. Much more wet insulation and the end up in the wheel well area was dry. The floor insulation was made of 2 pieces 4 feet wide material and then rolled out the length of the camper while building the floor at Sunline. The Darco was placed over the insulation and then the wood floor joists and wood flooring frame placed on the frame and bolted to the frame every so many feet down the length of the frame. It appears that the water stopped migrating towards the front and infecting additional insulation bays across the Darco membrane. This was due to the floor joist starting at the rear end of the wheel well being a joist that was bolted to the camper frame. The insulation was squeezed tight to the floor joist held by the frame carriage bolts and created a water stop. Thankfully…


Some of the insulation was totally wet, others towards the front was wet on the bottom and almost dry on the top.

The OSB board appears to have wicked moisture towards the front of the camper. By inspecting the bottom of the large floor OSB cut out, there was a white something growing on the bottom of the board. This was the same growth I found under the toilet floor. The moisture meter shows this growth has moisture in it as well as the OSB having absorbed some water.

This is the bottom of the large cutout floor board. You can see the dried glue on the board where the floor joists where.


Here is the white growth


In this insulation bay, it reads between 93% and 77%




As I move more towards the front of the camper, the white growth stops where there was dry insulation and the moisture was lower in the OSB. Here are the last 2 insulation bays with very little to no white growth.


19% in the second to the last bay


13% in the first bay


Placing the moisture meter inside the camper on the vinyl floor tile we have 57%


Lifting up the tile flap, the white growth seems to be here too in a slightly different form.


Measuring the white growth area directly reads 100%. Also to note the OSB had wicked some level of water as the circular saw had to be reset deeper when cutting the floor as the floor had swelled thicker in this area.


The insulation in this bay read 39%


This moisture meter reads a different % by the distance the sensor is away from object you are measuring. And it seems the vinyl floor thickness has some level of effect on reading the wet wood under it.

We moved to outside left corner to open up the left side floor to gain access to the wet insulation bays under the bathroom. We cut around the floor joists so they would still hold the camper up. Due to all the staples and screws from the floor down into this side floor member, we had to Sawzall cut the length of bad wood to cut out the staples and screws.


Then we cut pockets between the floor joists to get the insulation out


This worked to allow us to get the wet insulation out but not the last bay up by the rear wall. The shower drain trap compartment blocked access. So we took the rear wall floor end members out as well since they where rotted and the wall studs where not holding anything as they were rotted off. We had to cut all the staples and screws here too.


This opened up the last insulation bay and we pulled out the wet insulation.




Here is the inside cleaned out and now drying out.


We had to stop early today so this is where we ended up.

This completes Day 6 of the repair.
6/10/17, 2 workers for 5 hours = 10 labor work hours
40.5 labor work hours accumulated to date on the total repair
$0.00 in materials.

Thanks for looking.

John
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Old 06-10-2017, 09:54 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by REAL-LITE View Post
Great! Just bought a T1550 early 80's era and your most precise & extensive repair guide answers lots of questions and will be used as reference in my repairs. I will print it all out and have a guide in my shop for reference. great great great!

Hi REAL-LITE,

Thanks and hope your repair goes well.

John
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Old 06-11-2017, 06:59 PM   #17
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It just amazes me how a trailer can look so nice inside and out, but when you start getting into it WOW it's got all these problems! Good thing you like a good fix! I know it'll be great when you're done!
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Old 06-11-2017, 08:24 PM   #18
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Hi John,


Wow! You guys can't get a break with the water damage! Just a few questions that you may have answered before but I can't figure out what post they would be is since we talk about stuff in most of them. LOL!


-What is the make and model of your moisture meter and where did you get it?
-I see that you use Awesome to clean the rubber roof but how did you apply it? Do you rinse the roof off first and then spray the stuff on or apply it to a rag or sponge?
-Do you remove everything that "reads wet" or do you base it on the percentage of "wetness"?


It's been a busy and rainy week so I haven't had a chance to work on mine and my water spot hasn't gotten any bigger or wetter since I ran the dicor down the corner trim and over all of the exposed screw heads in that trim.


Great post by the way!


Steve
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Old 06-12-2017, 08:58 PM   #19
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Hi Steve,

Thanks for the good words. Much appreciated. Some answers to your questions.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sep View Post
Hi John,

-What is the make and model of your moisture meter and where did you get it?
See this post on the meter. http://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f7...per-17613.html

Quote:
Originally Posted by sep View Post
-I see that you use Awesome to clean the rubber roof but how did you apply it? Do you rinse the roof off first and then spray the stuff on or apply it to a rag or sponge?
I first start with liquid tide in a bucket of warm water and wash all the dirt off. If there are any real stubborn spots that will not come clean, then I use the Awesome straight in a spot treatment way. Like this.

- Rinse/wet the roof in the area to be treated.
- Spray Awesome from the bottle onto the roof.
- Using a car wash brush with a pole, I scrub from the side of the roof.
- Once that area is done, I hose that roof part off real well and when I get down from the ladder to move to the next location, I hose off the sides of the camper.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sep View Post
-Do you remove everything that "reads wet" or do you base it on the percentage of "wetness"?
Great post by the way!

Steve
I am still defining how wet is wet enough I'm going to address it. This is where I am today on the General Tools model MMD7NP meter using "wall" mode. The meter is not reading actual moisture percentage in the wood. It is reading % of full scale of the meter which senses moisture in it's working range. It is rated to 3/4" deep but I can see a level of moisture deeper then that.

I can say hands down, anything 40% and above it way too wet for me, it is getting opened up. I can also say that 20% has me concerned that I am doing something to get it lower. If I see, 5% or 8% I'm not that concerned just yet but I'm getting concerned when I see a 10%. When things are dry, I get 0% easy. Maybe a 1 or a 2 even a 5%. Much more then that and I need an explanation on what I'm seeing to know if I leave it or take it apart.

This meter is very sensitive. I would not want to go probing a camper on a wet raining damp day. I may get a lot of false depth readings of surface moisture and not real wet behind the wall moisture. I tested the meter the other day, with the meter on top of a dry (0%) piece of 1/2" thick OSB, if I put my hand under the OSB, the meter is reading my hand at 10 to 15%.

The meter does have limitations. One needs to understand metal in the wall will trick the meter. But that metal may be a copper wire, a conduit sleeve in a wall stud, a carriage bolt in the floor etc. But that is a blip on the meter. Water wet walls do not act like 0% dry for 12 inches, 30% for 1" of wall and then back to 0% for the next 12 inches. Wet walls are wet all over at high rates and they can taper down, 50%, to 30% to 15% and then to 0% across a pattern of where the wet stops.

The thing is for sure worth the $40 I paid for it when it comes to searching out a wet camper. (Amazon has them for $39.99. )

I can even find some kind of white mold growth on the bottom of 1/2" OSB. That growth what ever it is, has moisture in it.

Thanks

John
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Old 06-12-2017, 09:15 PM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tweety View Post
It just amazes me how a trailer can look so nice inside and out, but when you start getting into it WOW it's got all these problems! Good thing you like a good fix! I know it'll be great when you're done!
Hi Pam,

This one I knew what I was getting into and was prepared for it. And yes, unless someone has been through this before, you would never think it can be that bad behind the walls, ceiling and the floor...

And yes, I do like a good fix! I needed another project for this coming winter... We will get er all fixed up for camping next spring. I already have takers lined up in the family who want to go camping in it...

Thanks

John
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