Possible Damage to Kitchen Island when Closing Slide

pennysmom09 wrote:
Dutchman Sport, I feel your pain! The first time we opened our kitchen slide on our new unit, the lower cabinet door had opened and the slide just ripped it right off, no problem! LOL. My husband was able to repair cabinet....lesson learned! Those slides stop for nothing!!

We bought ours used, and previous owner had done that!!

We TRY to make it habit to check for open doors, etc. that has opened or stuff that has fallen in the way. Do the same when bringing in.

Dutchman Sport, I feel your pain! The first time we opened our kitchen slide on our new unit, the lower cabinet door had opened and the slide just ripped it right off, no problem! LOL. My husband was able to repair cabinet....lesson learned! Those slides stop for nothing!!

The screws used in RV construction are referred to as Robertson heads. :) Used in RV's and cabinet building as the driver bit holds the screw better, and slips less when driving. They come in several sizes, most common is a #2. Get yourself a good set of bits.

Link

Oh man, I HATE when that happens! On our first fifth wheel we had a similar experience but it was with the living room slide, luckily for us there wasn't much damage. For you there is going to be a real possibility of plumbing damage along with the more obvious damage.

IMO you're going to have to back out all of the fasteners holding your island down and reset it maybe relocating some of the fasteners due to the tear-out that occurred when "pushing" the island over. Then there's the plumbing...

Sorry to hear of you're bad luck, from now on you'll be way more careful, I know we are. Learn from it and move on

Dan

"pennysmom09... We have all learned the hard way that on your list of set up and close up.....be sure all slide paths are clear before pushing those buttons!..."

Agree! My current camper is the first one I've ever had slides on. About 5 months after I owned it, I slid the slides in (at home) and all off a sudden the one started balking. I stopped immediately of course, but too late. I heard a "pop".

Turns out, the cabinet door above the rear window was opened and it caught the corner of the slide when retracting. It popped off the trim on the slide on the top. I was devastated!

Closer examination, the trim that broke off was air gun nailed and then another trim on top of that was air gun nailed. No way to nail it back up and make it look right.

I ended up pulling the nails out from the back with a pair of pliers, and trimmed off the nails I could not pull. Then applied very generous amount of Liquid Nails on the back of the trim and glued it back on. I used clamp on the corner which held everything in place. I let it set for a couple days (slides were pull in anyway, didn't matter how long it sat).

It worked, easy fix, but also made me very conscious to double check the path of the slides before pulling in OR out! That same cabinet door could pop open when on the road, which could hit the slide trim when extracting.

So ever since, I've been extremely aware of the slide's path. Never had another problem, going on 2 years now.

Moved from Forum Technical Support

Most RV's have slide outs now, and few people have problems with them. We have all learned the hard way that on your list of set up and close up.....be sure all slide paths are clear before pushing those buttons! We have two super slides, one contains the kitchen, great design....just watch for any obstacles. Sounds like your repair took care of it!

Thank you DutchmenSport!
I'll check it out after this blizzard ends!
The island actually does come back down flat.
I'm also hoping I didn't hurt the plumbing.....there is a sink in the island

The base of the island is probably installed with pocket screws. When the slide hit the trash can and the can pressed up against the island, the screws pulled out of the floor (my guess)???

If you can see the actual wall of the cabinet that touches the floor (from the inside), you'll probably find the screws. The screw holes in the floor will probably be all busted out. You'll need to remove the old screws, otherwise, they'll continue to try to poke back into the floor, and they can't. They have to be screwed in. Remove the screws, then glue up the floor where the screw hole is now torn up, and you might be able to rescrew it back down.

But the reason the cabinet is not going back flat is because the screws holding it to the floor have been pulled out.



One more thing. Those screws will probably not be a Philips headed screw. They most likely will have the head that takes the square headed driver end.

on this site theres daily troubles with slides, sure glad I never wanted one.