My DIY damp repair project (3 Viewers)

[The_Kraken]

the rear walls are sat on the garage floor and screwed down. yes, the skirt and rear valance needs removing.

Bugger, had a quick look at her this morning. It looks like the rear section is one piece? There is a flap above the tow bar? Do you think i’ll need to take the rear fibreglass section off?

Also, if the side skirts at the garage end are like the side skirts at the front end, then the outer aluminium skin comes down beyond skirt level. There looked like some big screws (in the skirt section I removed doing the other repair near the hab door) that secure the ali outer skin into the side of the flooring.

I was hoping to cut the floor out from inside?

 

[The_Kraken]

Mine is the same as this one

Image taken from a Goog;e search

 

[TheBig1]

normally the rear valance is from the line above the lights, so about 2ft tall. stripping from the inside is easy if its all rotten, but if not you need to remove any screws holding it

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[The_Kraken]

normally the rear valance is from the line above the lights, so about 2ft tall. stripping from the inside is easy if its all rotten, but if not you need to remove any screws holding it

The rear fiberglass is one piece. I had a good look underneath today, saw a lot of staples! I’ll try peeling back a part of the skirt on the passenger side another day to see if I can see some screws.

 

[The_Kraken]

So, a good day at it today and we are pretty much done on the habitation door area repair now. I am very happy with how that has finished up. Very neat and looks great. Photos as promised.....

Oh, I bought some neoprene rubber to help keep any water out. Hete’s a shot of it fitted just inside the side locker (which will end up under the passenger side bench / pull out bed)

I fitted a USB charging point to the bench. It’s wired to the leisure battery via a little inline fuse box

It took me a couple of hours to s rape all the sealant off of the door frame. I also bought a new seal from Magnum Motorhomes amd it looks bang tidy!. All I need to do now is hang the door. But, before I do that I want to tidy up the inner door fly screen. So I’ll take care of that another day.

 

[The_Kraken]

So, with the habitation door area pretty much there, I turned my attention to ‘the problem child’ that is the garage area.

I started by getting the checkerplate out. It was firmly stuck in the middle - a lot easier around the edges. So, I had to use a crowbar to prise it up - it came up without too much fuss.

I took the large garage door / frame assembly out. It was well in there as I had used Sikaflex 512 when I put it in last year. I had to use a scalpel to cut the bead of sikaflex and then it came out with a little persuation.

Next I started to scrape out the mouldy wallboard. As I expected, it was pretty manky along the bottom of the sides and back wall of the garage area. It came away very easily in those areas and predictably revealed some very crumbly wood. All of that will need to be replaced.

The wallboard wallpaper is coated in spray on carpet adhesive and mould. I’ve taken it off (it more or less fell off) and began the labourious job of removing whatever wallboard I can. To be fair, it is pretty solid about a foot off the floor. However, my plan is to replace the wallboard with a plastic wallboard (a composite type panel) so, I think I’m going to have to remove it all - unless someone out there knows better and that l’d be ok to leave it in (if its solid enough) and simply add the composite walboard on top? Will it trap any damp behind the composite wallboard? Will I be better to remove the wood down to the polystyrene and then fit the composite wallboards?

The small locker side is way worse. The locker door has been leaking for a long time. However, it’s a simple case of cutting out the rotten wood and splicing in new timber. A straight forward repair. There’s going to be a lot of dead wood to remove so progress will be slow.

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[The_Kraken]

It looks pretty bad but, I am very confident I can repair this pretty easily. It’s just time.

I still haven’t sussed out how to remove the floor. This is going to be a case of having to take the side skirts off (or peeling them back to access screws that no doubt go through the aluminium outer skin and into the floor).

I hope to be able to cut the floor out from inside. I’m going to replace the floor with a grp honey comb panel so that it won’t rot. I think I am going to have to fit this in sections using ‘H’ section to join them (as suggested by The Big1).

So, lots more scraping required plus some exploring on how the floor is secured - I know the sides and back are sat on top of it. But, it looks like I am going to have to replace all the timber on both sides and the back wall which might allow me to get at the floor and cut it out in scetions.

I am going to do one side at a time to ensure I dont risk the structural integrity.

More soon!

 

[TheBig1]

If it were me, I would get some lengths of say 4x2 timber and use them as temporary supports on the sides. stand them vertically at each end of the locker openings braced off the floor. then screw a block of wood tight up in the top corners of the opening and screwed into the 4x2. then if disaster strikes and the wall tries to sag the blocks and 4x2 braces will take the weight of the wall till the rot is replaced. I would also leave them in to do the floor

 

[Lenny HB]

Only just caught up with this thread again, you are doing a grand job the finished bits look really professional.

Fibreglass Resin - I had some in my garage from a fibreglass repair kit I bought years go. Any fibreglass 2 pack resign will do. I used this to treat a bit of soft timber

That explains why it took days rather than minutes to set, it has a shelf life of 9 months.

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[The_Kraken]

Only just caught up with this thread again, you are doing a grand job the finished bits look really professional.

That explains why it took days rather than minutes to set, it has a shelf life of 9 months.

Whoops! I dodn’t know about the shelf life. Thanksfor the heads up and for the compliments

 

[The_Kraken]

If it were me, I would get some lengths of say 4x2 timber and use them as temporary supports on the sides. stand them vertically at each end of the locker openings braced off the floor. then screw a block of wood tight up in the top corners of the opening and screwed into the 4x2. then if disaster strikes and the wall tries to sag the blocks and 4x2 braces will take the weight of the wall till the rot is replaced. I would also leave them in to do the floor

That’s a great tip, thanks. Still at the head scratching stage at the moment.

 

[irnbru]

How are you wallpapering onto the board? Are you using normal wallpaper paste or spray glue?

Loving your thread.

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[The_Kraken]

How are you wallpapering onto the board? Are you using normal wallpaper paste or spray glue?

Loving your thread.

Hi irnbru,

Although I do have some ‘kenkle’ wallpaper, I’ve only ever used it for the panel capping that covers the joins on the wallboard. I bought some kenkle wallboard from Magnum’s and used a piece of that on the habitation door area repair.

I used contact adhesive to stick the kenkle wallpaper to the panel capping.

Hope that helps?

 

[The_Kraken]

Just thought i’d update the materials list:


Sikaflex 512 to bond the battens

Magnum Motorhome wallboard adhesive - this has a putty like consistency (incase like me, you wondered how I was going to get an adhesive to not run down the wall!) I haven't used this yet. Update: The wallboard adhesive was very good. Spread it on like tile adhesive and it forms a very solid bond. Recommended!

Wallboard - From Magnum Motorhomes, ours is 'Kenkle'

Wallpaper - From Caravan Warehouse: https://www.thecaravanwarehouse.co.uk/Products/wall-papers/WP061

Batten - Treated timber from B&Q 38 x 23mm which I have had to cut down to fit our Motorhome which has 33 x 23mm batten

Fibreglass Resin - I had some in my garage from a fibreglass repair kit I bought years go. Any fibreglass 2 pack resign will do. I used this to treat a bit of soft timber

Stainless steel screws - I don't want them to go rusty!

Habitation door seal - Magnums now stock the white rubber Autotrail door seals.

 

[The_Kraken]

Another day on the garage today and it was slow going.

I stripped out the last piece of ali checker plate from the step that runs the width of the garage just in front of the rear bulkhead that seperates the garage from the habitation area. This exposed the plywood and it appears to be in very good nick. I also stripped out the lino on top of the step.

There was another step on the passenger side of the bulkhead area which was secured with a few screws. So, that came out too. This exposed the water tank filler hose. Now, I had my suspicions that the water tank filler may have been leaking because whenever we filled the tank there seemed to be water in the garage area. Upon inspection, the hose does have a bit of a kink in it and the garage floor underneath that viscinity has water damage. The angle which the hose goes through the floor doesn’t make for an easy route and certainly explains why our water keeps ‘burping’ back out the filler when connected to a tap. I am going to reroute the filler hose to help remedy that.

You can see the filler hose in the photo below.

....and the kinked end of the hose:

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[The_Kraken]

I decided to explore the soft floor in the corner by the bulkhead and the water filler. I poked through it and it broke up quite easily. However, i expected to find a plywood floor say, 18mm or similar? But what I found was a composite plywood floor comprising a 3mm ply top, a 3mm ply bottom and a dense foam core of 34mm. Isuspect that so eone previously had tried to pour in some resin to repair the floor without realising that the floor wasn’t solid plywood! The result was that they melted the foam core leaving the thin plywood to defend against water ingress! No wonder the floor was soft!

In this photo, you can see the melted mess through the hole in the ply floor. I didn’t know what it was at first

Chipping away at the ply floor revealed more of the plastic mess

I began to realise what it was.

 

[The_Kraken]

I decided to cut a section of the floor out so that I coukd really see what I had because I was still trying to figure out how to attack this job.

Now it made sense. You can see the solid foam core. The floor was 40mm thick.

Here’s a chunk of it.

The mystery is beginning to unravel. I got underneath and got a good look at how the floor sits. Basically as TheBig1 quite correctly called it, I will need to undo the skirting to unscrew the floor through the aluminium outer skin. I should then be able to cut the floor out and hopefully fit the new floor in two sections.

 

[Figaro]

So is / was the blue stuff foam insulation ?
You`re doing a great job, enjoying watching your efforts
Edit : next photo shows it clearly, thanks.

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[rangi]

What a great job you are doing, professional quality too, a true inspiration to us all Well done with such an interesting thread.

 

[The_Kraken]

The rest of the day was soent removing all of the wallboard from the sides and the back wall of the garage. This was a painstaking job and I’m so thankful that I had my multitool to help cut the wallboard off. It was like shearing a sheep! The wallboard was really stuck well in most places. As to be exorcted, the plywood wallboard delaminated in the damper areas.

I’ve now exposed all of the timber and I’m pretty pleased with the level of damage. Nothing too terrible. I spent a lot of time scraping out dry rotten timber around the smaller locker aperture. There was a lot of water ingress there. It looks like the locker had failed but also the door retainer above was also letting in water.

Feeling a lot happier and confident about the repair now. The timber repair is just like the habitation area I have already tackled but, just on a larger scale.

That’s all I managed today but, I think I’ve made progress.

I still haven’t made my mind up what I will use for the wallboard. I’m torn between aluminium composite or foam. Foam is looking favourite because it’s lighter.

The floor is definitely going to be scratch resistent plastic honey comb floor of the type used in trailers and truck floors.

If anyone has any input, please chip in!

 

[The_Kraken]

What a great job you are doing, professional quality too, a true inspiration to us all Well done with such an interesting thread.

Thank you so much!

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[The_Kraken]

So is / was the blue stuff foam insulation ?
You`re doing a great job, enjoying watching your efforts
Edit : next photo shows it clearly, thanks.

Thank you!

Yes the subsequent photo shows the floor construction. The earlier photos show just how much damage resin can do if you aren’t careful....it’s melted so much!

 

[DuxDeluxe]

Great job. Fascinating stuff and big thanks for the progress postings. It is an inspiration for others

 

[The_Kraken]

Great job. Fascinating stuff and big thanks for the progress postings. It is an inspiration for others

Thank you!. I am really happy that my post might help others.

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[irnbru]

Thank you!. I am really happy that my post might help others.

You should be extremely proud of your work and updates as you go.

 

[The_Kraken]

You should be extremely proud of your work and updates as you go.

Thank you Irnbru!

 

[The_Kraken]

Just doing a bit of research. This is what I am looking at using for the wallboard inside the garage area:


Anyone have any opinions?

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[Ivory55]

Would it cause sweating ? As wall board is able to absorb damp where as solid plastic would not. Just asking as do not know.

 

[funflair]

Just doing a bit of research. This is what I am looking at using for the wallboard inside the garage area:


Anyone have any opinions?

I would stay away from the gloss finish it will look a bit tacky when new and the just scruffy as it gets marked with use, Matt/textured finish would be more subtle and durable.

Martin

 

[The_Kraken]

Would it cause sweating ? As wall board is able to absorb damp where as solid plastic would not. Just asking as do not know.

Hi Ivory55, that is what I am wondering too.

I do know that these days alternative wallboard is used in the garage area. I’ve seen it in photos and also when I enquired with Autotrail about repairing my motorhome they would not disclose what type of wallboard and flooring they use but they did say it was different to the habitation wallboard.

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