Water Damage Assessment and Repair

[JohnB]

Yeh, bees and such can make a real mess in a fridge etc. BenB had them in his popup gas fridge when he bought it. Mud daubers plugged the gas burner tube totally. Something about the smell of gas they like to go near. I cleaned it all out and it works good now, but they can make a real mess.

[Thomascine]

Good evening. It has been about a month since my last update here. I was able to get quite a bit done, at least in my opinion.

- Installed vinyl trim on the front corners.
- Installed new refrigerator vent. Also, added the screen on top that was suggested by JohnB to keep out bees and wasps.
- Added flying insect covers on the furnace and water heater vents.
- Installed MaxxAir vent cover over bathroom vent.
- Installed vent fan in bathroom. Bathroom vent was not wired for a fan so I tapped into the light fixture wiring. The light is right there next to the vent opening so it was pretty easy.
- Dicor over all new butyl tape that was installed during the front repair.
- Discovered that the water inlet to the fresh water tank had been leaking due to failing putty tape so the inlet was resealed with new butyl tape and Dicor.
- Installed the rockguard - Need to figure out how to better repair it. The rivets are not holding and the paint is already chipping. Used Rustoleum spray paint.
- Replaced all marker lights.
- Installed Eternabond tape around roof vents and roof seams and Dicor on Eternabond edges.
- Installed water heater bypass kit.
- UV protection on vent covers.

I think all the seals are good now unless I missed something. The back wall of the camper also has water damage. My next question is, how much time do I have to repair it? How do I know if there is wood rot? The funky smell that was in the camper when I brought it home is long gone once the front was opened up and dried out. It has not returned.





Thanks a bunch!

Tommie

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by Thomascine

- Installed the rockguard - Need to figure out how to better repair it. The rivets are not holding and the paint is already chipping. Used Rustoleum spray paint.

The back wall of the camper also has water damage. My next question is, how much time do I have to repair it? How do I know if there is wood rot? The funky smell that was in the camper when I brought it home is long gone once the front was opened up and dried out. It has not returned.

Tommie,

WOW you have been busy. Your camper is really shaping up! Do you have a timeline yet on when you will make it to the CG? We want to see you and your camper in the CG!!!

On your rock guard paint, is it the metal frame chipping off or the fiberglass?

On the back wall water damage, did you ever end up getting a moisture meter? The pinless type http://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f7...per-17613.html

If you can tell us how wet, wet is by the meter percentage in wall mode, take some pics and put numbers on it in the test places as a wetness map and we can help tell you some about what might be in the wall.

Odds are favorable if the smell is gone and you do not smell it at the back wall area, this is a good sign. Meaning it is not as advanced as the front wall was. And as long as the leak itself was fixed, then you very well may have time to go camping and fix the back wall over the winter. Again the moisture meter gives better real world how bad is bad right now then us or you trying to guess it.

Hope this helps

John

[Thomascine]

Thanks JohnB. Yes, I did get a moisture meter a while back. I have not broken it out of the package yet, LOL but I can open it up tonight and check. When I did a hand check, everything back there felt dry to the touch, not spongy like the front.

As far as making it to a campground, I am dropping her off at the trailer shop this week. I have to schedule some time off to take it. Their hours are during my work hours and they are not open on the weekends. She needs brakes, breakaway switch and state inspection to be legal. Probably tires too. I think they are outdated. Almost there though. I can't believe we actually may get to go, finally. That's if the trailer shop doesn't find anything severely wrong. I did not see anything when I was applying the POR-15. Anyone know what else they look for other than tires, lights and brakes?

Thanks,
Tommie

PS - I did post some of the pictures in the albums section. I think I created one for the roof that has pics of the fan I used and the Eternabond seal tape on the roof. Not the best job but it's on there and not peeling off, at least not yet.

[Thomascine]

Originally Posted by JohnB

On your rock guard paint, is it the metal frame chipping off or the fiberglass?

The paint is chipping around the black trim. The trim and face of the rock guard I believe to be fiberglass or some sort of plastic. The only metal are the arms and the cross support on the back of the face. The white paint does not appear to be chipping. Both are Rustoleum. Also, the rivets at the top that is holding the trim together are not holding. I priced a new rock guard and they are too expensive.

Thanks,
Tommie

[Sunline Fan]

Originally Posted by Thomascine

The paint is chipping around the black trim. The trim and face of the rock guard I believe to be fiberglass or some sort of plastic. The only metal are the arms and the cross support on the back of the face. The white paint does not appear to be chipping. Both are Rustoleum. Also, the rivets at the top that is holding the trim together are not holding. I priced a new rock guard and they are too expensive.

Thanks,
Tommie

Hi Tommie,

The rock guard consists of a fiberglass insert panel in an aluminum frame, with aluminum rear supports and lift arms. The frame is indeed aluminum, just factory painted unlike the rear supports which were raw.

I believe the rivets you mention hold the frame pieces together. There should be a piece of aluminum bar stock on the back, going between the sections, and the rivets go into that to hold the whole assembly together. Should be no problem to replace those rivets, or replace the bar if necessary. I've never had one come loose like that personally, but they are pretty simple. It probably wasn't latched and someone towed the trailer and it flung up.

The fiberglass insert panel is held in the channel with a rubber cord, similar to a thick screening cord.

On the rear support frame, the horizontal bar (which contacts the rear of the fiberglass panel) should have double sided tape holding the bar to the panel for the whole length. This prevents the fiberglass from flexing and waving around with wind pressure. If the old tape has let loose, you may need to remove the rear frame work and put new tape in. Similarly, the rubber cord has a tendency to shrink over time and may pull out in the corners, so removing it and reinstalling will help firm it up. Shouldn't be a big deal to have a small gap in the cord somewhere, but you can also fill it with more cord or anything you can stuff in there.

[johnnybgood]

Congratulations, your making some serious headway now.

Where are you camping first? Lake Anna?

[Thomascine]

Thanks SunlineFan. Only a little of the cord was loose. I was able to tuck it back in. I had replaced a couple of the rivets. I guess I will have to try again. Not too worried about it right now. I can still open and close it just have to be careful when doing so.

Thanks.


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[Thomascine]

Originally Posted by johnnybgood

Congratulations, your making some serious headway now.

Where are you camping first? Lake Anna?

Thanks Johnnybgood. When I last looked at Lake Anna it was booked. I have friends up there and they said it is nothing like when they used to camp there. There was hardly anyone there. Now it is a popular spot. We will probably do a test run at Fort AP Hill. Pretty cheap for military families. Have an appointment at the trailer shop on Monday to get her legal. She needs a state to inspection before we can do anything.

Thanks for rooting for us! We are almost there! Happy camping!


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[johnnybgood]

We recently got back from a Florida trip and thought about making Lake Anna our last campground on the way home. The logistics didn’t work out and we ended up staying at Medoc Mountain State Park NC, south of Roanoke Rapids. Not sure how far that is for you, but it was a nice little campground. We camped during the week for about $16 a night, hard to beat.

[Thomascine]

Moisture meter results

Okay here is the damage I can see and feel.


It is hard to try to balance, hold the moist meter and take pics so I wrote the readings on the wall. The pictures with the arrows means that there is reading below the board that you see in the pic.



Everything else seems to be 0%. If I need to take more pics just let me know.

Thanks a bunch.




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[Thomascine]

In reference to the back window, I did find about three suspect areas. The top left corner of the window, the lower left corner of the window and then there was a small crack in the metal siding that I put a piece of eternabond tape over. The corners I packed tight with butyl tape and then applied Dicor.



And for arguments sake I went ahead and applied dicor to these horizontal seams on both sides of the window.



The dicor should be cured by now and doesn’t look too bad. I don’t see anymore cracks.

Thanks.


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[Thomascine]

There is also a weird horizontal seam Going across the length of the back of the trailer. It looks different than the rest of the metal siding joins. Not sure if you can see from this picture but it is the line you see in the black

I even applied Dicor to that.

[Thomascine]

Originally Posted by johnnybgood

We recently got back from a Florida trip and thought about making Lake Anna our last campground on the way home. The logistics didn’t work out and we ended up staying at Medoc Mountain State Park NC, south of Roanoke Rapids. Not sure how far that is for you, but it was a nice little campground. We camped during the week for about $16 a night, hard to beat.

We are about an hour and a half from Roanoke Rapids. I will make a note of that location to try out.

Thanks!


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[JohnB]

Hi Tommie,

I see your moisture readings. To your questions:

I think all the seals are good now unless I missed something. The back wall of the camper also has water damage. My next question is, how much time do I have to repair it? How do I know if there is wood rot? The funky smell that was in the camper when I brought it home is long gone once the front was opened up and dried out. It has not returned.

A 25 to 30 number on wall mode of the meter of an area that large indicates it is wet. It is not in the saturated state, but it has enough moisture that for sure something is going in there. The visual signs show it too. Your outside Dicor work is a good thing. Key is to stop any new moisture from getting in to buy you some time.

Smells, when it starts smelling the rot it is very far along. I have not yet been able to tie moisture readings on the meter to smells “inside” the camper. High 90’s to even 100% moisture sometimes does not yet smell. I would say it sort of depends on how far the wall board is gone for the smells to start infiltrating inside. I thought you said, you do not smell the musty mildew scents in back wall area, at least yet. Did I get that right?

To the how much time do you have to repair it? The damage in the wall is already done. It happened a long time ago. Whenever you would get to opening it up, by seeing the condition it is in may help tell how many years in the making it has been that way. Point being, this is not a new problem, the damage is already done. You helped stop the spread of more damage by sealing it up.

Not being there to see and feel it in person I would expect that there is wood frameing that needs to be replaced inside the wall. If the paneling is going into the crumbled stage and soft, then the wood it is stapled/glued too is also going. If you want to try and quantify some of that, removing corner modeling screws OR trying to tighten them is a tell tail. If the threads on the screws are gone totally, odds are high that corner is well on the way to rotted or at least in the screw thread area. The screws in this case are rusting from the inside out. If there is goo on the threads, that is an active wet rot area and the screw may only be half gone. Unless you really want to know this and have time to deal with it now, the moisture readings tell a good enough story.

If you do not smell the musty mildew yet, then this can wait a while. This would make another good over the winter rebuild project. I’m not seeing anything that says right now, stop do not use the camper. There are many a camper that has a lot higher readings then yours that are being camped in.

Reality is most likely you have an amount of wood studding to replace and some of the wall panel. You overcame the wall panel issue in the front, so in this case it might be easier to replace the wall panel when the time comes with the rear wall rebuild then try and save it with Rot Dr.

Go camping, have some fun and plan a time when it is good for you to start a repair. With you having been through the front wall repair, you know this is not going to be a fast fix. Hopefully it will be less time as you are now way up the learning curve. So it will go faster.

Hope this helps.

John

[Thomascine]

Thanks JohnB.

Originally Posted by JohnB

I thought you said, you do not smell the musty mildew scents in back wall area, at least yet. Did I get that right?

Yes this is correct. I really don't know how to describe that funky smell, only that I don't seem to smell it anymore. (Sigh of relief) I am glad I have time. I have an appointment at the trailer shop on Monday. Couldn't make it this week. I am nervous about towing the trailer there. I have only towed one other time in my whole life and that was when I had to bring her home. Keeping my fingers cross that everything goes well.

Thanks a bunch!
Tommie

[Thomascine]

Well, I picked up the Sunny from the trailer shop once she was inspected and legal. I had to head back to work so I left the cover off. Before I got off, we had a good rain. I didn't worry too much, I mean it's all sealed up right?! Curiosity got the better of me so I went out after work with the moisture meter, and yep, I am getting readings on the front, the newly repaired front. Apparently I did not do a good job in getting it sealed.





This is what I found so far. I gave up for today and threw the tarp back over it.


Thanks,
Tommie

[JohnB]

Hi Tommie,

The moisture readings, are they a small blip on the meter or can you see an area of wetness? Like it starts at 0 or close to it and then gradually rises for several inches away from 0 starts rising and then peaks at your numbers?

Reason for asking is the meter will pick up metal in the wall. This can be a romex power cable or even a single strand 12 volt wire. Any kind of metal. They give blips of high unless you are following a romex cable then it will be long higher reading but very narrow if you move off the cable.

Water infections generally create an area wide problem and ramp up from 0 in a dry area to wet and then back down to 0 once you find the edge of the water infection.

By chance, any metal in the wall in the areas you looked? The 21% next to the 120 VAC wall plug for sure could be the romex cable.

Hoping this might be what you found.

John

[JohnB]

Like this metal L bracket

[Sunline Fan]

Hi Tommie,

It's possible your readings are slightly skewed by the air being pretty humid too, due to the rain. I would be surprised, unless you still had huge gaps on the outside, that that much rain could get in and soak in just one rainfall to cause that high of readings.

Mine read funny earlier this spring when it was still quite damp outside from the ground melting, even though it hadn't rained/snowed lately and was a fairly warm day. Areas that read 30% or so then read nearly zero a week or so ago when I rechecked.