Fresh water intake

[JerryJ]

My son and I were trying to trace and repair a leak in his 30FT, 2005 Fleetwood Terry. What we found was disturbing and we think it's manufacturer's original defect.
We noticed that typical soggy floor right by the main entrance and of course the two of thought the same as anyone else would. Leaky roof or window assembly.. NOT !!! no water stains on the ceiling and no typical signs on the wall. Knowing we had to replace the plywood on the floor we forged ahead. We removed the linoleum as far back until we hit plywood that had no water stains so we zeroed in on what looked like the heaviest point of damage.

Long story short (after we removed a cabinet inside the main entrance, it didn't take long to discover the source). Located under the cabinet is the fresh water intake hose and the breather hose. We noticed that there was no clamp to hold the inlet hose in its place. But, worse we noticed on the outside door where the "filler hole" is, was installed upside-down. Meaning, that any water being fed into the trailer is forced to go up hill rather than in a downward fashion, following gravity. So, the combination of anti-gravity feed and no clamp is what we feel caused this long term leak. There was no sign of this cabinet being removed prior, so, in our opinion this is a manufacture defect. Our replacement will be marine grade plywood instead of regular 3/16" plywood
I'm wondering how many other trailers may have had this defect. Have you folks heard any of these stories?

I took pictures with my cell phone but while able to download I'm unable able to upload to this site (still working on that). The trailer is stored at a friend's farm so next time we go back for more work, I'll take my Canon camera this time and repeat the pictures

[JohnB]

Hi Jerry,

Assembly workers forgetting to install clamps or installing water fill pipes wrong along with a host of other issues, has happened before. The only way to help stop this is IMHO is, worker awareness, management expectations, management walking the talk and good quality checks along the way.

While not the fill hose, I was camping with a fellow Sunline owner who had this brand new Forest River Hemisphere camper with him. Everytime he filled the fresh tank, water would run out of the enclosed underbelly. If he did not fill the tank, all was OK. But filing the tank, water gushed out.

He dropped the covered bottom down and found the fresh tank vent hose laying inside the underbelly cover. They never ran the hose out of the enclosed tank space. All I can say is, it happens. The stories of RV manufacturing goof ups is sort of endless. Some manufactures are worse then others.

[JerryJ]

Oh, I realize, along with everyone else that "stuff" happens and it's not just these trailers, or our cars, or anything else in life.

I, along with most on this forum, have done many fixes during our lives and between you and me, nothing surprise us anymore. But holy crap batman that cabinet removal took the cake.

WE sat down to take a break and marveled as to how much a non DIY person would have paid to take this to an RV dealer. Needless to say, it would be so cost prohibitive. Between you and me I can just picture (in our imagination) what actually happened to cause this issue, New employee, disgruntled employee, Poorly trained employee.....list goes on. I agree with you John, like anyone else....why us

Now onto reality. This is the first major floor we've replaced. This cabinet is to the right as you open the door. On the left is a cabinet that holds the kitchen sink, again on an angle quasi attached the stove/oven/furnace. That cabinet has to be removed, as well, to access the damage under there too. Beyond those two cabinets and the bed, there is zero water damage (super dry as a bone) the floor goes under many other pieces of furniture/fixtures. We made that "executive decision" to NOT go any further, aside from a foot or so overlap of the actual water damage. So, the floor will be a chess board. WE measured approx 5/16" floor and we have have decided to use Marine grade plywood.
Would there be any other recommendations up your sleeve for our floor install be as simple as we might think?

BTW I found how to upload those pictures using the cell phone pics "user error"

Thanks John

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by JerryJ

We made that "executive decision" to NOT go any further, aside from a foot or so overlap of the actual water damage. So, the floor will be a chess board. WE measured approx 5/16" floor and we have have decided to use Marine grade plywood.
Would there be any other recommendations up your sleeve for our floor install be as simple as we might think?

Hi Jerry,

The pics really help.

Something is not adding up on your floor thickness or not understanding how you floor is made up. You first mentioned 3/16" and now 5/16". Neither of those sizes will support weight as a walk on surface on floor joists that are appx 16" on center.

Are you sure it is not 7/16"? That would be more common.

Do you know the actual floor structural makeup in sizes and spacing? Meaning are there floor joists under the floor decking and which way do they run, left to right or front to back of the camper and what size are they?

Once I know a little more on how your camper is made, then I can suggest some ideas that you can use/alter or spark a thought for you to improve on.

Hope this helps

John

PS I have a friend with an older Terry, and he had some of his floor up dealing with a slide rot issue. I will see if I can find any info on his.

[JerryJ]

It was 5/16, obviously my 3/16 was a typo.
I saw the aluminum floor joists but because we were busy with other tasks we were not able to measure the distance between them unless, of course there is a standard. It was a rough measurement at the time with a crude tape measure. Plus the wood, itself, at that point had somewhat fallen apart. I was only after an approx measurement. Trust me, we would get a more definitive measurement prior to new wood purchase
I'm going to go out on a limb and say definitely not 7/16. But watch. Next time we go out to farm I'll be wrong again. LOL. 7/16 is closer to 1/2 inch and they did not appear to be that thick, even when looking at the tape measure.
The aluminum floor joists go from side to side. They do not run the length of the trailer. Mind you we have not seen all joists. There could be cross members that we haven't seen Again, I was only able to cut a tiny piece out of the floor.
Right now we've written the trailer off for the summer, since we're also renovating his bathroom and rear deck of his house. It's been a busy spring so far.

We won't be out at the trailer for at least another week. So, maybe for now we'll let this thread rest until I get proper numbers. If there's anything else I should be looking for please let me know