Repair help on leak in '93 Tioga while full-timing
Hey folks, so we're new to RVing, and in fact, jumped in headfirst as full-timers. Husband is in school, so it's the 2 of us and our 6 month-old in a '93 Fleetwood Tioga Montara class C. Unit was well-maintained by previous folks and has for the most part been well cared-for.
Well, we tried to replace silicon seal on exterior of cabover window before we set off for full-time and evidently DH didn't do a good job. Got a leak. So, now we're living full-time in the thing, and we're triaging the leak. Resealed exterior of window frame with Pro-Flex with the help of a long-time RVer and handyman. Leak is better, but not totally fixed. We're trying to reseal the roof with additional Dicor, but since it's been raining for the last 3 days and forecast isn't better, we're having a hard time finishing that. DH did some sealing yesterday up on the roof, had tons of rain this morning and leak is quite a bit better. I think we've almost figured out how to stop the water coming in. We're down to a few milliliters of water for 2 hours of hard rain. So that's good.
My question now is: how to repair the damage? If at all? We're not using the cabover bunk for sleeping, but as an "attic" for storage. Mattress didn't even come with us. So, not a problem to get all our stuff out of there. I'll post pics of the damage, but it looks like interior laminate has come apart, a little bit of wood rot, but when I pull back the laminate from the front exterior wall, I can see the insulation has a black coating of mold on it!
So, I'm not sure how far to dig into this repair. We only move the RV every few weeks, so we don't have to pick up and drive it every day. With a time constraint of 2 weeks before driving, and the fact that we're living it, how much should we try to do? Just dry it out? The repair doesn't need to be pretty. It just needs to stop further damage and be functional for the next 6 months. My thought was to take up the interior finishing (plastic laminate) and pull out the soaked fiberglass insulation, run fans on it and get it dried before it rots any more, then replace interior finishings, perhaps with new fiberglass? Or not? Should we just leave it out? Does the insulation/interior finishing serve any function in terms of keeping the unit watertight? Help! We're so new to this, so we want to triage the problem now, but we're on the road, making repairs onsite. Suggestions? Ideas?
Well, we tried to replace silicon seal on exterior of cabover window before we set off for full-time and evidently DH didn't do a good job. Got a leak. So, now we're living full-time in the thing, and we're triaging the leak. Resealed exterior of window frame with Pro-Flex with the help of a long-time RVer and handyman. Leak is better, but not totally fixed. We're trying to reseal the roof with additional Dicor, but since it's been raining for the last 3 days and forecast isn't better, we're having a hard time finishing that. DH did some sealing yesterday up on the roof, had tons of rain this morning and leak is quite a bit better. I think we've almost figured out how to stop the water coming in. We're down to a few milliliters of water for 2 hours of hard rain. So that's good.
My question now is: how to repair the damage? If at all? We're not using the cabover bunk for sleeping, but as an "attic" for storage. Mattress didn't even come with us. So, not a problem to get all our stuff out of there. I'll post pics of the damage, but it looks like interior laminate has come apart, a little bit of wood rot, but when I pull back the laminate from the front exterior wall, I can see the insulation has a black coating of mold on it!
So, I'm not sure how far to dig into this repair. We only move the RV every few weeks, so we don't have to pick up and drive it every day. With a time constraint of 2 weeks before driving, and the fact that we're living it, how much should we try to do? Just dry it out? The repair doesn't need to be pretty. It just needs to stop further damage and be functional for the next 6 months. My thought was to take up the interior finishing (plastic laminate) and pull out the soaked fiberglass insulation, run fans on it and get it dried before it rots any more, then replace interior finishings, perhaps with new fiberglass? Or not? Should we just leave it out? Does the insulation/interior finishing serve any function in terms of keeping the unit watertight? Help! We're so new to this, so we want to triage the problem now, but we're on the road, making repairs onsite. Suggestions? Ideas?
