bob2010 wrote:
Just sold a palomino camper with soft floors. Had what they called bonded floors which is Styrofoam with thin ply wood attached. Can't repair them because seams won't hold as that floor gives a bit under foot by design. At least that is what I am told. I want to buy a new camper from a dealer now. Do all the campers around the 18 to 20 foot length have theses floors?
bob2010 wrote:
Just sold a palomino camper with soft floors. Had what they called bonded floors which is Styrofoam with thin ply wood attached. Can't repair them because seams won't hold as that floor gives a bit under foot by design. At least that is what I am told. I want to buy a new camper from a dealer now. Do all the campers around the 18 to 20 foot length have theses floors?
Im looking at a Citation 30 ckts travel trailer with slides.. The whole kitchen area is soft . When I took out a 2 ft square piece of lino I found a thin layer of rotten plywood , about 1 in thick styrofoam then more ( 1/4 ?? ) plywood and below that a silver material like aluminum foil . My theory is that bottom membrane has water somehow running on it wicking up and rotting the wood. So how too fix the floor and how do i find how the water is coming in.. Your thoughts are appreciated
You may want to post your question in a new post rather than replying to a topic that's 11 years old.
bob2010 wrote:
Just sold a palomino camper with soft floors. Had what they called bonded floors which is Styrofoam with thin ply wood attached. Can't repair them because seams won't hold as that floor gives a bit under foot by design. At least that is what I am told. I want to buy a new camper from a dealer now. Do all the campers around the 18 to 20 foot length have theses floors?
unfortunately gdetrailer has no idea what he's talking about or is confused. "Lite" trailers with bonded floor construction don't use wood joists or staples (you can't staple luan to foam), they all use aluminum joists which are basically a thin hollow wall joist that is crap. The whole floor structure is bonded at the factory in a grid fashion and is 1/8 or even 1/16 luan on both sides, with a foam middle. There is really no way to repair it because there is no structure to tie into, unless you consider a hollow mickey mouse aluminum frame to be sufficient. And you can't lay out or repair osb or plywood in just one area without doing the whole trailer, because you have a 1/8 top layer or less before you are at foam. In very few cases you can inject epoxy into the floor IF the repaired soft area is very small. It's also important to realize that sometimes soft floors are mistakenly assumed to be water damage, when sometimes it's simply an issue of little or no support underneath because part of the reason these are "lite" is because manufacturers save weight by placing support beams way too far apart, sometimes 4 feet or more under the trailer. It's a terrible design and I would avoid any trailer with this construction. My advice comes from rehabbing and flipping over 200 trailers in 18 years, so I'm well versed in their construction. good luck
