This style camper hatch may put you in trouble for rot:
Follow-up to our camper rot / water infil issues:
Just a heads-up to anyone owning a truck camper with exterior hatches (I suspect that this would be everyone with a camper):
-the style of hatch in the photo (this is ours to the propane containment) may be a persistent leaker when you have rains:
This is the hatch (and, our battery hatch: same style) that allowed water to leak into our Outfitter; water infil that nearly destroyed our camper.
History: I tried every mitigation I could devise (drilling holes at bottom of hatch door; placing a new rubber gasket; blocking the vent slots (not a good idea, but in desperation, I had to try it), re-seating and caulking the entire perimeter of the radius frames FROM THE INSIDE OF THE CONTAINMENT COMPARTMENT; and numerous other ideas, like canting camper to the propane hatch side and battery hatch side; etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc) and NOTHING I implemented will keep water out of my propane compartment or battery compartment. They flood inside compartments at every rain lasting more than about 45 minutes. Just this morning, I shoveled half an inch of rain water out of my large propane compartment (THANK GOD I had sealed all the seams of my battery and propane compartment containment containers, turning them nto swimming pools, or all my work removing rotted wood from and repairing this camper would have been for not !).
WATCH OUT and PAY ATTENTION to what hatch frame and door system you get on your new purchase, and do some serious investigating into your current hatch doors (all of them), or you could lose your camper to extensive water leaking and resultant catastrophic rot.
The problem appears to be:
1) door frame filling with water and over-spilling into compartment at bottom (drilling holes in door frame does not work effectively!);
2) the long/large hatch hinge extremely poorly designed, allows water to pour into the compartments (absolutely no mitigation possible on this frame hinge design!).
I have been relegated to tarping both hatches permanently (both when camper is in the immobile state in driveway AND camping). And, I pack huge bath towels into the compartments when driving if encountering rain.
Just a heads-up to anyone owning a truck camper with exterior hatches (I suspect that this would be everyone with a camper):
-the style of hatch in the photo (this is ours to the propane containment) may be a persistent leaker when you have rains:
This is the hatch (and, our battery hatch: same style) that allowed water to leak into our Outfitter; water infil that nearly destroyed our camper.
History: I tried every mitigation I could devise (drilling holes at bottom of hatch door; placing a new rubber gasket; blocking the vent slots (not a good idea, but in desperation, I had to try it), re-seating and caulking the entire perimeter of the radius frames FROM THE INSIDE OF THE CONTAINMENT COMPARTMENT; and numerous other ideas, like canting camper to the propane hatch side and battery hatch side; etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc) and NOTHING I implemented will keep water out of my propane compartment or battery compartment. They flood inside compartments at every rain lasting more than about 45 minutes. Just this morning, I shoveled half an inch of rain water out of my large propane compartment (THANK GOD I had sealed all the seams of my battery and propane compartment containment containers, turning them nto swimming pools, or all my work removing rotted wood from and repairing this camper would have been for not !).
WATCH OUT and PAY ATTENTION to what hatch frame and door system you get on your new purchase, and do some serious investigating into your current hatch doors (all of them), or you could lose your camper to extensive water leaking and resultant catastrophic rot.
The problem appears to be:
1) door frame filling with water and over-spilling into compartment at bottom (drilling holes in door frame does not work effectively!);
2) the long/large hatch hinge extremely poorly designed, allows water to pour into the compartments (absolutely no mitigation possible on this frame hinge design!).
I have been relegated to tarping both hatches permanently (both when camper is in the immobile state in driveway AND camping). And, I pack huge bath towels into the compartments when driving if encountering rain.
