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Old 09-16-2018, 05:34 PM   #1
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Rot in right rear corner

Just cleaning the floor of my 2004 2499 and found soft spot in the lower right rear corner behind the rocker chair. Will this be a big job or do I have to just start tearing it apart. Should I work from the inside or outside? I appreciate any helpful tips. My wife died in Dec last year and I am debating if I should still keep it but I sure do enjoy it. Thank you in advance for any help fellow owners can give
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Old 09-16-2018, 05:45 PM   #2
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Sorry to hear about your wife I lost my first wife to cancer nearly 20 years back. I see like me you live in Ontario, just got back home from Killbear a couple hours ago..we live in a beautiful Province!
In all likelihood just like the rest of us the leak causing the root starts up the roof.
Is it worth tearing into and fixing? Depends on your skill set and tenacity!
John B., myself and others have done similar repairs with suitable results. Getting the leak or water infection found and stopped is first on the list.
John can point you in the right direction quickly and probably the first thing to do is getting a moisture meter.
My thread is from last year and John has done even more extensive work on his trailers.
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Old 09-16-2018, 08:04 PM   #3
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I am thinking of taking it to a dealer although I could maybe do it myself. I had a dealer reseal the roof a while back and they told me it was not good in the right rear corner of the roof. So I am not sure if I will need to do the roof as well. I guess I would have to just start digging and see where it goes. Maybe I will call a dealer and get an idea of what they feel about cost.
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Old 09-17-2018, 11:57 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tedontario View Post
I had a dealer reseal the roof a while back and they told me it was not good in the right rear corner of the roof. So I am not sure if I will need to do the roof as well.
Based on this, I'm not surprised you found the floor damage. The moisture made it to the floor and was trapped in there, where it slowly rotted the wood away.

It would be a good idea to repair the roof too. You may not need new rubber, but if you are tearing into it, it's a good time to do it. The pressboard underlayment under the rubber has likely disintegrated from water damage, and that's probably why the dealer made that comment. Snow load and even rain/wind can put extra stress on the rubber roof, which is now very stretchy, and can pull that seam apart again. So there's no sense in repairing the floor if there's still an active water leak.

You better be sitting down when you talk about this with your dealer. Very likely the repair cost from them will outweigh the value of the trailer, which is why so many of them are totaled by insurance companies. They will work on projects like this, especially if they have some slow time during the winter, but shop rates are still pretty expensive.
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Old 09-17-2018, 10:25 PM   #5
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Hi Ted,

First, I am so sorry for you. Judy is now at peace. We will pray for you and your family.

The camper, what you are describing has indications of a roof leak that water followed the corner of the camper down to the floor where it then is trapped by the waterproof membrane and then rotted that area. The roof substrate
holding the rubber on is also deteriorated.

There may also be a corner molding leak. The gutter spout on the camper can blast the corner molding seal and water can get in that was too as well as towing in the rain. And there are other areas such as clearance lights and even a window seal. Or some part of all of them.

The good news, this is very fixable. The way your camper is made this can be repaired from the outside. Yes, it is best to fix this "first" from the outside in. I would suggest to not try to start this repair from the inside as it can damage the wall board bad enough it has to be replaced. And depending on how bad the damage is, the wall board may be gone too band still the outside would need to come apart to fix the rotted wood. Taking siding off your 2004 is not that hard to to.

Now the harder part, cost. While the camper is repairable, hiring this repair out to do a "complete" repair is very labor intensive. It just takes lots of hours of work. And those hours at whatever shop rate they have can go into $1,000's real fast. If you are looking for a stop gap fix, or a fast patch that can last a year or so and then sell the camper as is, that can be a cheaper option to try slow down the leak. This does nothing to fix the damage, but will at least slow it down. You need to work through, do I want to keep the camper or not.

If you have the "time", have common woodworking tools and have done home wood projects of most any kind, then those skills can be used to fix the camper. We can help with the "how to".

I do not want to scare you, but help show what you are to expect. There are some really ugly pictures of what that type of leak looks like inside the walls and roof.

First, I suggest buying a moisture meter so you can scan the entire camper to see how big the problem is. There may be more than one area, just now you found the right rear corner. See this thread to help with the meter. Suggest scanning the entire camper and making sketches of the camper with the moisture readings. When you are done, then you can see how big the water issue is and how many of them you have. This is a $40 US tool that can help with the decision of how good or bad this problem is. http://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f7...per-17613.html

Here are some rebuild project pics that can show you what you could be up against.

This camper had a rear corner leak and a rubber band spongy roof feeling. It is a slide camper but is a very good example. This camper wanted to be kept so we did a total roof job. Yours may not have to go that far but it shows the walls and how it all comes apart and put back together.
http://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f7...avy-16834.html

This post is a non slide camper and a 2004. It too has back wall issues but I did not make it to totally fixing that yet. The front is fixed but the post is not yet finished. Again this can show how to take it apart.
http://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f7...2-a-18706.html

And here is one that is in worse shape than yours. It had a roof leak that was only caulked (patched with no repair) and then years went by and the rotted wood let go at the roof line and water just kept coming in. I only show this to help with how the rear of the camper comes apart. I have not made it to putting it back together yet. http://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f7...avy-17684.html

Hope this helps and we are her to support you as we can.

Thanks

John
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Old 09-23-2018, 12:14 PM   #6
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Our son has a 29 ft Terry and he encountered an ammonia odor. After some snooping we determined it was from pee. Every time they go camping their son and daughter takes friends, so we're thinking that maybe the kids over used toilet paper and things clogged up.

Since the season is finished we decided to lift the pooper and found our suspect, just as we thought. We removed the tiling and noticed old moisture staining, then removed the flooring and noticed it had been replaced by a previous (or previous to that) owner. So, basically 2 levels of flooring, because who ever did the floor we removed only covered the original floor that was super damaged.
Our plan is to remove the vanity and bathtub, tear all the bathroom flooring out, right down the the framing and start fresh by using a marine grade plywood. We also noticed some sponginess near the main entrance about 2 1/2 ft worth.

The way we see things, it might seem like a big job but by asking questions and planning your attack and by TAKING YOUR TIME you should be able to do things yourself. My son's roof was leaking years ago and someone fixed it then so the entrance flooring had sogginess. While they may have fixed the roof, they didn't bother to look further.

Our attitude was to go to the bones and start fresh.
Put you hands on the walls and see if you have any sponginess. If you have some then maybe consider new light weight plywood or paneling for the walls. You don't want old mildew.

It's amazing what you can learn on your own just by taking your time, do some you-tubing and asking questions here. We're planning to do his TT after his home reno's are complete.
BTW I had to replaced a dampened wall in my 1985 Sunline a few years ago.
It looked overwhelming but I did one step at a time and tada, good as new
Hope that helps
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