Are interior walls load baring or can I remove one

[solaris1961]

Any advice would be appreciated. I have a bumper pull 28 foot Sunline solaris I think lite. No slide outs. There is a bedroom in the front with a solid wall separating it with a sliding wooden door that closes for privacy. I want to remove the wall. Does any one know if structurally it is safe to remove the dividing wall. I want to be sure it is not load baring or would mess with the trailer flexing during transport.
On this side of the wall is a sleeper couch and cabinets that I plan to move. The couch will fit on the side wall and the cabinets will be removed. The thermostat will be relocated and the duct work for the heater rerouted. Has anyone done this before or think it is safe for me to do. Any recommendations or advice would be appreciated.
Cathy

[JohnB]

Hi Cathy,

Welcome to Sunline Owners Club!!

Do you know what model number you have? The weight sticker in the kitchen or bath cabinet should have it. Or out on the VIN sticker on the front left of the camper. Is your camper a 2001 model year?

Between the year and the model number we can look up your floor plan and may give a better answer to your wall quest.

As far as load bearing from the ceiling, the inside walls do not normally hold up the roof, but again better to know your floor plant first.

The walls though do create stiffness in the trailer. The cabinets as well. They help keep the walls from flexing.

Get us the model number and confrim the year and we can see what you have. Removing 1 cabinet may not be an issue, but an entire wall and a few cabinets might be.

Hope this helps

John

[solaris1961]

That makes since. I will look for the information next time I visit the trailer that is in storage. Many Thanks

[solaris1961]

I have a 2000 Sunline Solaris T-2670. I also have a crack in the plastic fresh water tank under my sink. It is at the drain valve this there anything I can use to seal it. The dealer said I had to rip the trailer apart to replace it.

[JohnB]

OK a 2000 T2670 See here. On the top of the forum screen is a tab that says "Files" click the tab. All kinds of good stuff in there

Sunline Coach Owner's Club - Sunline Owner's Files - 2000 Sunline Solaris & SR Travel Trailers


I'm "assuming" you have the dinette?

This ideally would be a great question for the factory. They use to help big time on these kind of questions

I'll give an "opinion". You will have to figure out if it is what you want to do or not.

Removing the couch, I do not see a problem.

Removing the cabinets up above the couch, not seeing a strength problem.

"Completely" removing the wall, that makes me stop and think. There are no cabinets on the wall to the floor from the bed to the dinette and no wall. This means that outside wall has no support tie to the camper floor any more.

But the bed frame is still there tie'ing the floor to the wall. That helps.

The question comes down to running length of the camper with no left to right support of the wall to the floor. And there is no support on the opposite wall which runs from the front of the camper to the sink.

If you look at all the other camper floor plans, there is no camper that has that long of no wall support to the floor on both sides at the same time if you pull the entire wallout.

If you left a cabinet where the wall was, or only cut the wall down to 2 feet long or something, then you still have a support tie from floor to wall.

My "thoughts" are the camper "might" flex left to right a lot more if you clear span both sides like that. Meaning the entire camper structure might "parallelogram" so to speak after a lot of towing. I myself would not clear span both sides like that that long.

Now that couch, is that a jack knife coach? If so it mounts on a wood frame to get it up off the floor. If you build a long frame to tie the floor to the wall and put the couch on top, that brings strength back to the trailer side flex.

All the cabinets and mini walls they put in the camper creates stiffness left to right.

A point to think through, removing the wall will (may) create holes in the ceiling and the floor tile. You will have to patch them up. The patch may or may not blend in well. It depends on how creative your wood working/ masking skills are to create the patch.

The fresh tank, can you take a few pics and post? I do not know your camper layout to see what you are up against. It might be easier then thought or as difficult.

The plastic the fresh tanks are made out of have a real hard time having adhesives stick to them. So the tank manufactures heat melt or mold fittings to the tank.

Help us see your tank and the fitting area. We might be able to help short of the taking the "entire camper"

Hope this helps

John

[solaris1961]

Thanks John
I decided not to remove the wall. Too risky your advice was much appreciated.
I will get a picture of the water tank which is under the kitchen sink and stove. But I looked yesterday. It is cracked where the drain plug is screwed in. As if the drain plug was either tightened to much or was too large and split the plastic. I was thinking of trying that spray stuff you see on tv that seals water leaks. They use it to seal
rain gutters, pots for plants and even the bottom of a boat. Do you know what I am referring to? I'll send pictures of the cabinets and the crack later today. Many thanks.

[JohnB]

The spray on stuff, ahh, I would say no becasue of the type of plastic the fresh tanks are made from. They make them from polyethylene and it is really hard to have adhesives stick to it. The adhesives that do stick are special. Heat welding of the tank is more the option pending how yours is cracked. They sell very expensive tools to do this, but a large soldering iron ( a real big one heated by a LP torch) may work, you just need the resin filler rods. Do not know what access you have to tools of that kind.

Here are some links on repairing polyethylene tanks,

A utube

https://plasticstoragetanks.com/cgi-...ppinc=fittings

Cracked agricultural water tank repair with a plastic welder

They sell the tank fittings that weld to the tank if yours cannot be fixed, you would cut off the old one and weld on a new one. The link below is a 1/2" one. Dyers also has 3/8 npt. I went to the Ameri-Kart site and that fitting is polyethylene

Ameri-Kart 1/2" Female Pipe Fitting - Tank Fittings - Fresh Water Tanks - Plumbing

Ameri-Kart - Recreational Vehicles (RV) Parts and Tanks | Ameri-Kart

I myself have not done the tank welding, I know about it and how it works. I have had to deal with adhesive on Polyethylene or polypropylene and they need special adhesives or corona or plasma treatment to get the adhesive/paint to stick

Hope this helps

John