Feeling Brave

[Melweiler]

Hello all!

My husband and I just bought a 1998 Solaris T-2990 with plans to renovate and enjoy for many years. This is our 3rd and oldest towable. After selling RVs for a year, I learned a restored Sunline is a much better investment than anything built recently.

We have a few leaks and soft spots and are prepared to gut, re-roof, insulate, rewire and more. I hope you can join us in our journey! We hope to have it done by spring 2023.

Happy camping!

[johnmanna]

welcome do what we did replace the roof with plywood then you can walk on it to make repairs

[JohnB]

Welcome Melweiler!

Congrats on your new Sunny! And yes, you are right, a restored Sunny can be a lot better in the long run then many of the newer campers being produced today.

When the time comes for you to start into your restoration, please consider creating a separate post on this project. We are here to help and learn from you too along the journey.

We have many posts with pictures of members doing their upgrades and restore efforts. I'll pass along a few things as a starter for you incase you may have not known. Campers are not built like a house is, they are built from the outside in. The screws to remove many of the cabinets and walls are screwed in from the outside in when the siding was off. And aluminum the siding is stapled to the wall studs. To do a sound repair, in the long run, it is quicker and a better repair to take the camper apart for water damage repair from the outside in. Meaning removing the siding, then dealing with rotted wall studs and or flooring and inside wall board as needed. The wall board or ceiling board can be saved in some cases with the cabinets in place. Even if the wall board is totally gone, it is still better to come at this from the outside if when the wall studs/ceiling rafters have damage.

Point being, before you start "gutting the camper" think through the total repair process understanding how the camper is built. Do not fear removing the siding, it can be easer then you think once explained. And your wood stud/floor joist/rafter removal and restore will be more sound once you re-install the siding back onto the new wood. The roof may also need to come off pending there the water damage started.

See this post as a starter into thinking about how you are going to take the camper apart .

https://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f...tml#post155103

Feel free to ask any and all questions along your journey.

Hope this helps,

John

[Melweiler]

How thick is the plywood that you used on your roof?

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by Melweiler

How thick is the plywood that you used on your roof?

Hi Malanie,

This post may help on new roof board thickness. I went into different thickness option details there. https://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f...tch-19201.html

How thick the plywood needs to be sort of depends on the size of the roof repair you are doing.

A total reroof, I have used 2 choices,

Non - walk on roof, Nominal 1/4" which measures close to a heavy 3/16". It measured 0.217" or 5.5mm. This thinner material allow the EPDM/TPO or PVC membrane to be glued to the plywood, sheds water well, avoids ponding water areas sunken down and saves weight on campers that do not want to give up cargo carrying for added roof weight. You still need to use small plywood sheets to walk over this.

Walk on roof, Nominal 3/8" which is more close 11/32" thick. This is thick enough to walk on directly and no extra plywood servicing sheets like the thinner plywood. This has some loss of cargo capacity using this, but it is not much pending the size of the camper and what is more important, a full walk on roof or loss of a small amount of cargo capacity.

At least one club member used 7/16" thick OSB. This will work but it does create issues if you are trying to reuse the old moldings. There are work arounds, and this can be used, but it would not be my first choice. It weighs more, and uses up more cargo capacity on the camper. Costs more, but it will work.

When using plywood, I look for BCX plywood, meaning B sanded side up to membrane, C side down and X for exterior glue. Whatever you do, do not get CDX like on a standard house roof with shingles. The C side is pretty course and can have a knot hole exposed in a layer. It is not a problem for an asphalt shingles but can be when gluing a flexible membrane down to it.

If you are doing a small roof "patch" like a water damaged corner that has 2 ft x 2 ft water damaged corrugate budboard, then you can use 1/8" luan plywood with supports under it in that area. It will allow you to glue the membrane down, not create side molding issues with the thin layer and shed water. You cannot walk on this with out support plywood on top. I myself would not use 1/8" plywood on the entire roof, it's to thin and I can see ponding issues between rafters over time due to just not enough stiffness.

Hope this helps.

John