Recently I bought a travel trailer with the intention of converting it into a full time home. It is older, and I knew there were several soft spots in the floor. Upon closer inspection, it looks like the whole front side of the trailer has water damage, and about half of a sheet of plywood on the ceiling is rotted out.I suspect it is from the front termination bar failing, and allowing water to slip down the rubber roof into the wall. I am wondering, is it possible to replace the rotted sheet of plywood and glue the same piece of rubber down, or do I need to replace the whole roof? I don't have the money to have it professionally done, so I would need to do it myself, which I am fine with. My concern is that I live in Oregon and I am not sure how much more nice weather we have.Any advice on this would be very appreciated.

Better get yourself a bunch of tarps, gonna need it for this repair.Most likely you will find that the rot extends a lot further than what you think and the only way to know for sure is to rip out everything until you find good wood.This means you most likely will need to pull out the ceiling material, pull back the roof material and then replace wood framing that is rotted, put down new roof decking then glue down the roofing material.. Then on the inside you would need to replace the old ceiling paneling and insulation with new material.Not impossible to do, but takes a lot of time, material, your labor and bunches of money..If you hire out, the labor alone will far exceed any "value" of the trailer.Been there, done that..In all honesty, you most likely will be farther ahead by scrapping the trailer, selling off windows, doors, A/C, Furnace, water heater, stove and the frame with legit title and you most likely will get more money out of it than what you paid for it.Then take that money and buy a newer trailer that is in better shape..I don't give up easily, but after two full on rebuilds and hundreds of hrs per rebuild (took 9 months on my current TT)I think you will find your time is more valuable than what you think. You can't get your time back and the next owner isn't going to pay you for the time you put in it..

Gdetrailer wrote:Better get yourself a bunch of tarps, gonna need it for this repair.Most likely you will find that the rot extends a lot further than what you think and the only way to know for sure is to rip out everything until you find good wood.This means you most likely will need to pull out the ceiling material, pull back the roof material and then replace wood framing that is rotted, put down new roof decking then glue down the roofing material.. Then on the inside you would need to replace the old ceiling paneling and insulation with new material.Not impossible to do, but takes a lot of time, material, your labor and bunches of money..If you hire out, the labor alone will far exceed any "value" of the trailer.Been there, done that..In all honesty, you most likely will be farther ahead by scrapping the trailer, selling off windows, doors, A/C, Furnace, water heater, stove and the frame with legit title and you most likely will get more money out of it than what you paid for it.Then take that money and buy a newer trailer that is in better shape..I don't give up easily, but after two full on rebuilds and hundreds of hrs per rebuild (took 9 months on my current TT)I think you will find your time is more valuable than what you think. You can't get your time back and the next owner isn't going to pay you for the time you put in it..So I have already pulled the plywood from the walls, and part of the ceiling. Only the front piece of plywood seems to be rotting. Everything before that seems solid.Time is the one thing I have plenty of, so I don't mind putting the effort into repairing the thing. Just want to make sure I do it right.With you having done multiple rebuilds, can you tell me, is it possible to glue down the existing sheet of rubber on the roof to a new piece of plywood?

You won’t be full timing in that TT for months if you decide to fix it. If you want a project, great. If a home, buy another TT.

get some covers, winter is here.

The rubber is typically not glued down to the roof. Watch some YouTube videos on how trailers are made. They roll out the rubber on the plywood, and it's secured at the edges by the trim and also where the a/c, hatches and vents come thru. You should be able to re-use that rubber with no issues. If it's torn, use some EternaBond tape to seal the tears. I just completed a rebuild of a water-damaged truck camper (see link in my signature) and used EternaBond to seal all of the corner seams to prevent any future leaks. In my case, the roof was fine, but every window was leaking.Most trailers are framed with 1x and 2x material with 1/4" ply on the exterior walls, 1/8" ply on the inside, and 3/8" (or optional upgraded 1/2") plywood on the roof. If you have basic skills they are easy to repair, the biggest challenges are the time it takes and having a dry place to work. I rigged up a 30x40 tarp over the camper with a rope system to keep it off the roof so I could work under it. The winds beat the **** out of the tarp, so I wound up with a 20x30 tarp on top of that one as a rain fly, and it help us nicely, even in tropical storm Isaias. The tarp was up a total of 4 months and kept everything dry while the camper walls were open.I would also check the floors for soft spots, water that comes in up top usually finds its way into the floor framing at some point.You say "converting it into a full time home"...if the trailer is already located where it will stay you may want to consider a metal lean to roof like this one from the get go instead of temporary tarps.If you mean full-timing in the trailer while you travel around, then you need to pay attention to weight of materials used and good strength so it withstands bumps and flexing going down the road. I used a LOT of PL Max construction adhesive on mine.Post pics if you can, like GDE I've done this 3x now and have a ton of resources in my files.

Rotted plywood ceiling, can it be replaced and reglued

Gdetrailer
Explorer III
Oct 21, 2020
Better get yourself a bunch of tarps, gonna need it for this repair.

Most likely you will find that the rot extends a lot further than what you think and the only way to know for sure is to rip out everything until you find good wood.

This means you most likely will need to pull out the ceiling material, pull back the roof material and then replace wood framing that is rotted, put down new roof decking then glue down the roofing material.. Then on the inside you would need to replace the old ceiling paneling and insulation with new material.

Not impossible to do, but takes a lot of time, material, your labor and bunches of money..

If you hire out, the labor alone will far exceed any "value" of the trailer.

Been there, done that..

In all honesty, you most likely will be farther ahead by scrapping the trailer, selling off windows, doors, A/C, Furnace, water heater, stove and the frame with legit title and you most likely will get more money out of it than what you paid for it.

Then take that money and buy a newer trailer that is in better shape..

I don't give up easily, but after two full on rebuilds and hundreds of hrs per rebuild (took 9 months on my current TT)I think you will find your time is more valuable than what you think. You can't get your time back and the next owner isn't going to pay you for the time you put in it..

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Rotted plywood ceiling, can it be replaced and reglued

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