found soft spot in floor

Cecilt wrote:

DutchmenSport wrote:


I have a soft spot in front of the kitchen sink, that's about a foot square also. I know it's not soft because of water. I do now know, it's soft simply because of my 230 pounds standing on it! But it's far, far, far from breaking, collapsing, or failing, and definitely not in need of any replacing.

While I was there, I took some photos, namely so I can watch for any more problems with the drain pipe leaking (I cleaned up the pipe too) and can have a comparison for future reference. I like to document everything, especially with photos as the time and date stamp is on each one.

Too funny. Towards the end of the 2016 camping season I noticed the vinyl floor in front of my fridge appeared to be coming loose from the subfloor. Was sort of developing that bubble type feeling. Since my fridge and stove are on a slide this is a lot of weight going over the floor all the time. Also around that time my slide got a little out of adjustment and would sort of hop as it went across the floor.

In any event I chaulked the issue up to the above and not water damage. Camped the entire season in 2017.

Got it out of storage end of March 2018. I was getting worried that maybe the soft area was water from the kitchen sink in front of the slide that is on an island may be leaking slowly causing the issue.

Took it to my RV tech 2 weeks ago and he said no leaks from sink lines or drain lines and no water getting in from underneath. He did a water meter test and poked through the floor and the meter did not measure any different. He thinks the floor is just starting to deteriorate as there is a large cross beam under the area and maybe just the weight of the slide constantly going over the area has finally started to break down the floor which is just Styrofoam sandwiched between thin luan.

We bought the camper September 2013 and this issue was not noticed until end of 2016. I am glad your issue which appears identical to mine was not water as I have a hard time thinking it wasn't.

This thread has me seriously thinking about laying a 1/4 inch sheet of plywood on top of the floor at my sink area. It would be cut to fit so the slide will not hit it when retracted, and not so annoying we'll be tripping over it. I'd cover it with some carpet material to make it look like a throw rug, or even buy a throw rug to staple to it. It would look like a throw rug in front of the sink and this would give a little more support at that one spot and maybe keep further breakdown of the Styrofoam from happening, as body weight would be distributed over a larger area that way.

The more I think about this, the more I think I may do it. It's simple and would provide a little extra support without having to add, alter, tear up, or fix anything.

Maybe the OP could do something similar and not have to tear up his floor.