Have gutters changed in the past 20 yrs? and other stuff..

[kiloseven]

We bought a used travel trailer. The storage compartment in the rear had a soft spot in the floor. We lifted the linoleum and found the particle board to be waterlogged. We basically spent the past 3 days taking out any wet / damaged wood and insulation and rebuilding the whole interior of the storage locker. We feel that we have the issue under control and we could see distinct limits to how far the water had moved from what we think was the entry point.

So, the entry point seemed to be specific area of the hatch / door for the storage compartment. We have since removed the door and resealed it (along with redoing the whole interior of the compartment).

Lucky for us, it rained yesterday and we noticed water running down the side in a steady stream. The water ran right over the area where we thought the leak had originated. This leads us to believe that the massive onslaught of water in that one area every time it rains basically overwhelmed what the seal was designed to handle.

I looked up and saw that we have this long strip of metal an inch or so down from the roof in the shape of a "C" with the opening of the "C" on the outside. There is a break where two pieces were put together as if they did not have enough to make one continuous piece of what we think is the gutter along the side. This seems to be where the water was coming from and running down the side.

I pushed up on one piece and it slowed the flow of water, but did not stop it. I ran a small tool inside the channel to clean out any junk in there, but there was nothing abnormally huge in there to block it.

I am thinking that tomorrow I will try to work on working with the two pieces to make them fit more snug where they touch each other and look at getting a gutter extension to move the water away from the travel trailer (if it is even a gutter).

My problem is that when I search for RV gutters, I don't see anything in a similar style. Any gutter extensions do not seem to be able to work with what we have.

Have the gutters changed and we just have an old gutter? Are we able to replace the gutter with a new one? I found one online that sticks on with 3M tape and was thinking that I could put it below the current gutter so I don't have the unscrew the current gutter and risk breaking any seals in the upper side of the trailer. Is it worth it to put a stick on gutter over windows of older travel trailers as an added precaution?

Sorry for rambling, but we are new to this and with winter approaching we only have a few weeks before we have to put this bad boy up to ride the cold weather out. We are planning on using the trailer on the drive back to Texas next year and want to have it as ready as possible so we don't have any surprises in the spring.

Thanks again in advance.

[rjsurfer]

kiloseven wrote:
We bought a used travel trailer. The storage compartment in the rear had a soft spot in the floor. We lifted the linoleum and found the particle board to be waterlogged. We basically spent the past 3 days taking out any wet / damaged wood and insulation and rebuilding the whole interior of the storage locker. We feel that we have the issue under control and we could see distinct limits to how far the water had moved from what we think was the entry point.

So, the entry point seemed to be specific area of the hatch / door for the storage compartment. We have since removed the door and resealed it (along with redoing the whole interior of the compartment).

Lucky for us, it rained yesterday and we noticed water running down the side in a steady stream. The water ran right over the area where we thought the leak had originated. This leads us to believe that the massive onslaught of water in that one area every time it rains basically overwhelmed what the seal was designed to handle.

I looked up and saw that we have this long strip of metal an inch or so down from the roof in the shape of a "C" with the opening of the "C" on the outside. There is a break where two pieces were put together as if they did not have enough to make one continuous piece of what we think is the gutter along the side. This seems to be where the water was coming from and running down the side.

I pushed up on one piece and it slowed the flow of water, but did not stop it. I ran a small tool inside the channel to clean out any junk in there, but there was nothing abnormally huge in there to block it.

I am thinking that tomorrow I will try to work on working with the two pieces to make them fit more snug where they touch each other and look at getting a gutter extension to move the water away from the travel trailer (if it is even a gutter).

My problem is that when I search for RV gutters, I don't see anything in a similar style. Any gutter extensions do not seem to be able to work with what we have.

Have the gutters changed and we just have an old gutter? Are we able to replace the gutter with a new one? I found one online that sticks on with 3M tape and was thinking that I could put it below the current gutter so I don't have the unscrew the current gutter and risk breaking any seals in the upper side of the trailer. Is it worth it to put a stick on gutter over windows of older travel trailers as an added precaution?

Sorry for rambling, but we are new to this and with winter approaching we only have a few weeks before we have to put this bad boy up to ride the cold weather out. We are planning on using the trailer on the drive back to Texas next year and want to have it as ready as possible so we don't have any surprises in the spring.

Thanks again in advance.

I had the EXACT same leak, right where the two separate pieces of C channel gutter meet.

Rather than replace or re-seal the gutter I purchased a 50' (4") roll of
Dicor and overlapped the entire gutter. No leaks now.

Ron W

[kiloseven]

Anmacc2 wrote:
I have a new camper and there is a seam in the rain gutter directly over the middle of the entry door. It was leaking and sending a stream of water behind my awning. I used liquid solder to fix that leak.

My previous camper (1999) had the issue you have with the rain gutter ending at a point which sent a constant stream of water directly over my storage hatches overwhelming the seals. No extension I tried lasted through a trip. So instead I put a length of gutter directly over the storage hatches channeling the water to drain in front of and behind the hatch. No more leak.

Hope this helps.

Thank you. I was just talking with my wife about getting that gutter with the 3m adhesive and either running it long the underside of the old style gutter that we have so that it catches the water or maybe just putting it over the cargo hatch and windows.

[Anmacc2]

I have a new camper and there is a seam in the rain gutter directly over the middle of the entry door. It was leaking and sending a stream of water behind my awning. I used liquid solder to fix that leak.

My previous camper (1999) had the issue you have with the rain gutter ending at a point which sent a constant stream of water directly over my storage hatches overwhelming the seals. No extension I tried lasted through a trip. So instead I put a length of gutter directly over the storage hatches channeling the water to drain in front of and behind the hatch. No more leak.

Hope this helps.