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Old 03-29-2020, 10:47 PM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LeAnn View Post
Question is, im a little confused on how to get the back wall up high enough for me to put the back bottom piece in and also the floor joists?? Maybe I missed some posts somewhere?? Im pretty positive the wood is rotted on both sides as well but that will be another day. Getting a lot more comfortable with tool use so this is turning out to be a pretty fun task!
Hi LeAnn,

Just checking before I type a bunch and answer the wrong question.

Since the camper has a rotted floor, rotted out walls, and the camper has sunk in the back.

Are you asking, how do you lift the rest of the camper back up in order get the new wood floor and wall studs in and correct the sunken height difference?

PS. Good job on the front opening.
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Old 03-29-2020, 10:50 PM   #22
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Yes that is my question ��. Thank you! It definitely took a lot longer than expected haha. Hoping to knock out the floor and piece together the back wall tomorrow before the rain comes Tuesday!
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Old 03-30-2020, 08:56 AM   #23
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Hi LeAnn,

I will try and give you some generic guidelines to go by in order to check and how to adjust for the back of the camper height to match the rest of the camper. Once you do a check to see how far off you are at the back, then we will need some more pics and info before I can suggest a better method on how to correct the problem.

Odds may be high, you have to rebuild the floor in the back to be good before you can check how far sagged down the back of the camper is. Just make the new floor is as straight and true a surface as you can. You can place a long straight broad from old good floor to new floor to see that the new floor height is fairly inline with the orignal floor.

Ceiling to floor checks: The camper was built with a straight ceiling and floor line front to back within tolerance. Your goal is to find out what that distance and how far away the back is in relation to it.

1. With rear wall rot damage creating a buckling of the siding like your camper has shown, odds are favorable the side walls close to the back wall also have rot in them enough to affect the support of the back of the camper. This causes the back of the camper to be lower than a good part of the camper. We know the rear wall right now has no support. The sidewalls is TBD.

2. I would start by measuring a good area of the camper, assuming there is a good one. If not, let me know, I will alter the approach. Measure very accurately the distance from a solid piece of floor, straight up to a known solid piece of ceiling. Check this dimension in a few areas of known good wood, floor to ceiling. We need to establish what your camper has for floor to ceiling dimension. NOTE: make sure you try and measure from the actual floor surface or on top of floor tile. Carpets or other raised items on top of the main floor are not to be included.

If you having a hard time trying to read a tape measure to accurately get a floor to ceiling measurement, you can create a measuring stick. Take 2 approx. 4 ft long small boards and a C clamp and slide and extend the 2 boards to touch ceiling to floor and clamp in the middle. Any 2 board less than floor to ceiling height but more then 3/4 of ceiling height will do) Before clamping, give them a little clearance(1/32" or so) to not jam them tight so you cannot get the board out. Then move the clamped stick from place to place. You may find you have to reset the stick as the camper will have some small sag to it, but the end goal is to get a good average of a known good floor to ceiling distance. You can then easily measure out in the open the length of the measuring stick.

3. Now knowing the floor to ceiling distance the camper was built to, go to the back of the camper. Measure from the new floor or part of the old floor if it is still any good, and find what that distance is. Compare the 2 numbers. Tell us what the difference. 1/4" to 3/4" sag could be expected. Even more depending how bad it is. You need to know how much the back of the camper ceiling has to lift to put the new back wall and side walls back to where it is supposed to go. If you are only 1/16" to 1/8", that is so much to worry about. 1/4" or more can/should be corrected without that much effort before you rebuild the camper.

4. If the back of the camper floor is totally gone, measure from the top of the camper iron frame to the top of good floor and add that into your top of floor to ceiling number. In the back where there is no floor at all, then measure to the top of the iron frame and add the difference.

How to fix the problem.

After the floor is replaced, then you need to jack up the back of the camper and start putting new wall studs in place assuming the back of the camper is OK. This is a generic statement. We need to know how good or not the rear ceiling system even is. If the ceiling and rafters in the back are rotted, and the side walls rotted, you not going to be able to jack up a rotted rafters or ceiling and have them solve the problem. That rot needs to be addressed, and if so, you still have a new target floor to ceiling height to build them too.

Before I get into jacking up the camper, let us know how far sagged the back of the camper is, and if the rear ceiling, rafters and side walls are all good to rotted.

I will post in the next response a cross check that can help show quickly how good or bad your rear wall sag is.

Hope this helps

John
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Old 03-30-2020, 09:16 AM   #24
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Here is a quick way to see how bad the problem of rear camper sag is. This is not the way to rebuild the camper, but it can help aid in troubleshooting.

When the camper was built, Sunline installed the siding in a straight line front to back. They had a straight camper iron frame when it was new and the siding was stapled on in that same straight fashion.

As a cross check and a quick, how bad is it, pulling a string down the siding of the camper from the front to the back can help. Both left and right side may be different as the sage is different on both sides.

See here for the basic method. At the front, pic a spot on the siding and clamp or hold in place with a helper, the end of the string. Line it up to the bottom edge of the siding joint. Go to the back of the camper and pull the straight tight. Look down the string align it up and down trying to create a straight line. I"f the walls dropped, the siding saged or the frame bent. Or both. If you see the front 6 feet straight, then it take a sage downhill to the back, the wall rot could be starting where the sag starts to go downhill.

See here. This camper had a bent frame and the siding sag started right at the bend.

Camper when in good condition. Siding straight front to back


Camper with frame bent.
String at the roof line,


Back of camper sagged down 3 5/8" at the roof line


After some correction, but not the final fix. Still sagging down in the back. Pic to show you don't have to use the roof line, the problem shows up in the middle too.


After fixing the issue, the camper siding now all back in line straight.








The point being, the siding stapled to the wall studs flexes to the sag/rot in the wall studs or the frame bend of the camper. Using a string as a line of sight against the siding tells a lot what is going on with the frame or the walls supports real quick.
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Old 03-30-2020, 11:00 PM   #25
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The side walls are definitely rotted. Not sure how far yet. I was concerned about stability so I thought of putting the supports in the back first then diving into the side walls. The supports above where the back window went look pretty good so i may have escaped having to do the entire back wall. *pic attached* After that to your advice i will pull up more flooring and follow the water damage. There is a portion from where the water heater was towards the furnace area that is all completely gone as well. Here are a few pictures of the side wall damages. If the rain holds out tomorrow ill do some of the tests and get back on the results. Very curious to see how much of a lift this old girl is gonna need...Thank you again so much for all of your advice! It really has helped me deal with the overwhelmingness of this project!
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Old 03-30-2020, 11:10 PM   #26
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Your gaining! Keep up the good work
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