arnold97 wrote:
With that said, is the camper worth repairing? I would hate to think that I have wasted this camper, because when I bought it, it had only been used a few times since new. But, I do understand that I have neglected it. Badly.
Thanks for any input!!!
Only you can decide whether it is worth it to repair. It will be costly to have a RV Dealer repair it or a lengthy repair if you choose to do it yourself. It can be repaired, but unfortunately, the floor will never feel stiff again.
The walls and the floor are vacuum bonded. They build the walls and floors in panels. There is a layer of luan plywood that is glued to an aluminum sub frame with Styrofoam insulation between the aluminum rails then another layer of luan on top of the sub frame. These are then vacuum sealed which gives them a lot of rigidity.
We owned a 3 bunk Hybrid TT (in my signature). It was a great trailer, but eventually we found a soft floor in the front half of the trailer. Water leaked in from the bottom of a storage compartment that was not caulked from the factory. The repair was pretty straight forward. With the help of a friend, we removed all the furniture, then peeled back the vinyl/linoleum floor. Then we pulled up all the rotted wood. We also removed most of the styrofoam. I left the beds down and kept the TT open for about a week in the middle of a GA summer to make sure everything dried out. Then I replaced the styrofoam and pit down 1/4 inch oak plywood.
After putting all the furniture back in place, the floor was not solid. It flexed in places because the vacuum bonding had been broken. I ended up putting 3 2x4s between the trailer's frame rails as I-Beams to help add some strength to the floor, but it still wasn't as solid as before the water damage. Definitely better than before the 2x4s, but still a little soft. It did not feel unsafe, just a little soft under our feet.
In your case, you'll most likely have to replace the entire floor. There may be 2 soft spots now, but most likely a lot of the floor is wet and will eventually get soft. On ours, the water entry point was small. I could see where the water entered. It basically traveled about 5 feet from the entry point towards the opposite wall and about 5 feet back towards the rear of the trailer.
The cost to make repairs maybe totaled $100 give or take. It took about 2 days to get the furniture, hot water heater, fresh water tank and the rotted wood out of the HTT. Probably another 2 days to put it back together and add the I-Beams.
You can probably easily make the repairs yourself, just make sure you find and fix the leaks and make sure everything dries out thoroughly before putting it back together.
Good luck,
-Michael
