Question about slides and wood rot?

Lokin4deer wrote:
Thanks for the comments and links! I pick it up Thursday night and we are excited! I have done a lot of reading and watching and I feel very confident in my ability to do this repair.

I thought you already had it! There is no way I'd buy a camper knowing that it had rotten floors unless it was a screaming deal. From my experience with this, there will be other areas rotten that you do not know about. I hope you're getting a great deal on this and good luck!

Thanks for the comments and links! I pick it up Thursday night and we are excited! I have done a lot of reading and watching and I feel very confident in my ability to do this repair.

Start here exact same problem and partial repair, and maybe PM JBarca if you have questions…

click


and watch these videos… supporting the slide and total replacement…



part 1



part 2

Lokin4deer wrote:
But I don't want to get into a can of worms. Thanks for any advice on this!!

then don't buy it.
bumpy

Go back into the Heartland owners site and you will find all the information you need about that problem.If I remember it was the lack of a strip along the edge under the slide that allowed water to wet the end floor board of the slide which was treated or something but didn't protect it.I bought a North Trail new and asked the dealer to get the parts for me,there was 2 strips that I installed which solved the pending problem.At the time the dealer was not aware of the situation but ordered in the kit for all the units and did them on the lot.The new models soon after had that change.

If you know for sure where the rot is, you may be able to use a product called Git Rot which will trun the rotted area into plastic. Regardless, you have to stop the leak itself.

Personally I would not buy a rig I knew needed rot repair, I've repaired rotted rigs twice and have no interest in doing so again

I can tell you that I have never seen any rig with 2x4 framing, they don't exist.

How RVs are built is different then houses, they are bottom up and from inside out. That is to say the walls rest on the floor. Including in the slide. You might find you need to remove the slide from the rig to repair the floor.

The typical slide I've seen (moving up from the bottom) is the slide mechanism, then what is basically a stress-panel. That is a sandwich of plywood-foam insulation-plywood, with reinforcing members around the rim. I haven't seen a slide floor that wasn't insulated in, well, years. Our 99 was built that way

----EDIT-----
You aren't going to like this
I went to NADA-Guides and found that, the actual low retail price, for a used rig in good condition, with no rot is $9100 That would imply the average private sale price would be more like $8000 to $9000, with no rot. With rot the discount would be something like you got from their price, I would guesstimate something like $6000 to $7000

The mistake a lot of people make, when the use NADA-Guides to get the price, is they fail to note the part that states "only select options that are not included standard equipment". They then add in the furnace, water-heater, refer. etc All those things that are already included in the base price,
In fact, for your model they note:" From 2005 to current, prices include A/C, awning, fantastic fan/rain sensor, home theater system (Bighorn only), DSI water heater, and stability jacks"

It's not terribly difficult. I had to fix the floor in a 2003 Coachmen, but it wasn't in a slide area. I removed all of the cabinets and bed and whatever else I could. Make sure you cut away as much of the rotted area as you can. Is it under carpet? If so, that makes recovering it a little easier if you go back with carpet again. Otherwise, I've helped another guy use a vinyl product that looked like hardwood, but then you really have to recover the whole floor. Make sure you fix the leaks, too or you'll be doing this in a few years again.

Regarding the construction of the slide floor, The ones I've seen are just a sheet of plywood that's attached to the bottom of the walls. There was no framing in the slide floor.

If your handy you should be able to fix it without too much strife. The problems comes when you dig into it and find the rot goes everywhere. With that said you can still fix it if you like the rig. Your not going to find anything in there that you haven't seen before. These trailers are not rocket science. There just a box with some moving boxes. If you like tinkering go for it.