Water Leak, Repair Update Feb 12th

BurbMan wrote:

So 2013 was the year I replaced the floor in the slide out. As part of that project I had the slide disconnected from the rack drive, the seals and the side trim were also off. At that time, a small piece of the floor under the slide was also water damaged and so I replaced that with 3/4" plywood. Note in this recent pic that the same piece I replaced is also now rotted. sorry my arrow is not showing but it's that piece by the slide with the corner gone.



snip..
Let me know if you see anything else in these pics. The evidence somewhat contra-indicates...the leak seems like it's towing related, but yet the issue got much worse over this past summer when we hardly towed at all.

Hi Don,

OK we are gaining, maybe, with that piece of floor rotted that you replaced, it helps tell some of the story.

The comment of it seeming to be getting much worse and not using the camper as much this year,

Question: While the camper was at home and you were working on the house, was the slide opened up for periods of time in the yard? And did it rain when the slide was open?

You have no topper on the slide, that means the seals have to hold all the water running down the side of the slide. A topper sheds some of the water. It can help lower the odds. Look up in the top corner of the slide where the seals go from horizontal to vertical. That 90 degree corner can sometimes allow a space to be open. If water enters that area it can run down the side of the slide and then go where ever it can. It looks like you have a double slide seal setup. Maybe a single seal for the inside and a single seal on the outside. See here


If water enters the top between those 2 wipers it can run down between the 2 wipers and stop at the floor. Your marine varnish is working good but water may then wick under the floor towards the slide side molding and possibly into the floor area.

That corner where your new floor board is rotted and the 2 x 3 suggests possibly water getting into that area. This pic sort of shows a possible path.


Water running down the outside wiper will flow until it hits the cut in the wiper just below the slide floor. Then it will start wicking and it may head right into the bottom of the floor. Ideally that wiper was not cut there at the slide floor. If it was not cut the water may have ran straight off the bottom. If you want to test this, take a bucket and pour some water down the side of the slide, let it cling to the side and flow, not a gusher on the sealing wiper and watch as the water stream hits that cut at the bottom of the floor and see where it wants to go. By doing a test like that I figured out how my slide floor rot leak happened.

If it not coming from the roof, then it may be down the side of the slide and under the floor and wicking in or under the molding like wrgrs50s suggested.

Since the slide is open in these pics, we can't see how well the slide seals are tight to the camper when towing water is flying up. You should see road splash on the Darco if water is slinging from the wheel making it that far up front. If the Darco is clean, then it more points to rain water coming in somehow under the slide floor at the vertical slide molding area.

Hope this helps

John