weld broken on the slide - common??
We seem to have a broken weld on our slide. This is a 2005 Host Rainier 9.5 I want to know how common it is for a weld in the slide to break from "normal wear and tear". We found a crack coming f...
Forum Discussion
wnjj wrote:jimh425 wrote:
wnjj, I'm not sure what search you are doing. If you are finding a handful of posts of different brands, I'm still not calling it "common".
This thread has generated two examples including one very old Fleetwood that uses an entirely different structure, and a longer Host that was heavily used including one episode of hitting a tree if I remember right. I'm not saying the tree is related. Ok, that it was heavily used, but extra unsupported length would be significant.
Still, there is no way to tell if any damaged slide or structure was heavily loaded or not or operated unlevel, or unsupported. Anything can break, for sure, but a handful of cases of damage caused by unknown causes isn't "common".
It seems to me that a limb hitting the top of the outside edge of the slide would be significant force. How much force should it take to break? Who knows?
I simply searched for "Host camper cracked frame". I found a 2007 rv.net thread from smoothetop and fireman1968 both who had issues with cracks below the slide. You even posted in it then. There's another 2007 thread from MrPhelps with a cracked Yellowstone. I also found hostcamoerssuck.com which is clearly one angry guy. Ignoring his rant and scrolling down to his pictures near the bottom you can see his cracked siding,
No, these examples don't make it "common" and I never claimed it was but certainly show that it's possible and probably not just from user/external forces like you suggested earlier.
Again, there were several Eagle Caps I've seen posted about that suffered the same fate. It doesn't make it common for them either but I'm definitely watching mine as there is a noticeable sag under the slide that has already compromised the skirt/siding seam.
I did a google search.. a search in rv.net didn't bring up what you were referring to. Google did. After looking at them and reading... I don't know if I should feel mortified, enlightened or entertained. I definitely feel lucky that that tree branch didn't come through the roof. I also feel lucky that the slide has worked all this time. Even now... it's not stuck in or out.
Monday is almost here. I don't have a lot of hope in this being covered by insurance.
