Here are some pictures:
1) the outside. Looks amazing...
2) Looking towards the front: Removed some of the vinyl flooring, and some of the top layer of plywood, as well as the table and benches. I screwed down a piece of plywood at the entrance to stop me from stepping through the floor. I'm gonna need more scrap plywood to support my weight during the repair.
3) Disconnected the services to the Kitchen lower cabinet: plumbing, gas and took the important picture of the electrical connections so I'll know how to put it back together again. :)
4) Kitchen lower cabinet removed! That took a while, and I saw some places where I will be adding dome support to the cabinet. They try to keep the weight and fabrication costs down, and it baffles me how flimsy cabinet are.
5) I had to store my new weight distribution and sway control by Husky I JUST bought. Assembling that will have to wait. As you can see, the water damage continues all the way to the front of the trailer.
6) This is the kitchen lower cabinet after it was removed. reinstalling it will be a task that will surely take a few hours. Lucky for me, I have the skill set and proper tools to do this properly (I'm a contractor in home repairs).
7) You can see the layers involved here, as well as how the flooring is secured to the trailer frame. The broken piece of foam insulation is just there to help support the plywood I'm sitting on. Just above it in the picture, you can see the black plastic membrane, To the left you see the 1/8" thick plywood (why is there paper in between those layers? It acts like a sponge and turns to mush!). Then you see the foam insulation panels. You can see the bottom layer of the 1/4" plywood that was peeled off of it. This means that the glue holding the plywood together was weaker than the glue holding the plywood to the insulation...
The flooring is secured to the frame by cutting out foam sections, and replacing them with chunks of 2 x 4, along with a 2 1/2" carriage bolt. Not sure how I feel about that. Any ideas for upgrades? I'll replace with new pieces.
8) One of the flimsy brackets Aerolite used on the trailer. This was a blessing in disguise, and I would not have found out about the damage if this had been properly built for the application. Funny thing: this bracket was strong enough to hold up the front of the trailer because the floor above it that was overhanging the trailer frame was helping. Once the floor lost its structural strength, the bracket started to bend. In this picture, you can see that the bracket is no longer at 90 degrees. Here is what I will get done to these brackets: 1) beef up the lower portion so that I can secure it to the lower portion of the trailer frame. 2) add a diagonal component to transfer the load from the front of the bracket to the bottom of the frame. This way the floor above it will be properly secured, and the steps (which bolt in that spot where it is rusted) will be properly secured.
I'll post more pictures later. Today (Labour Day - been doing this all weekend instead of camping like we wanted to do...) I will be looking at the other side of the trailer: the slide out and the water heater cabinet: I am hoping that the damage there is less than in the other areas, and I can get away with drying it out and killing the mould chemically (20 parts water, 10 parts bleach and one part detergent (to act as a surfactant - you scrub it in, wash off the residue, and then wear the moon suits and masks and vacuum everything very carefully.).
