Water Damage Repair Info Needed - Please Help!

[arnold97]

I am new to the site. Please forgive me if I have posted this in the wrong section. :h

I bought a 2006 Antigua from a family member about 3 years back, used it for one camping trip, then had a baby, and life got busy. Today we decided to break out the camper again, but found some water damage.

First spot is in the floor, in front of the refrigerator, against the front bed. The floor is very squishy. I went outside and noticed that the exterior wall, directly behind the fridge, is extremely soft. If you push on the wall from the outside it feels like it moves back and forth at least an inch. I noticed (2) susceptible entrance points for the water; one at the roof vent for the fridge, and also at a bent piece of metal on the front bunk.

Second spot is in the floor of the bathroom. The skylight appears to have dropped down a little...(I'm afraid it is due to such rotten plywood in the ceiling).. But that has caused the bathroom to take on quite a bit of water. The floor definitely needs to be replaced there as well.

I will attach some pictures of our camper that have the wall and floor soft spots labeled.

I am a general contractor, so I have the knowledge when it comes to repairing water damaged wood, laying flooring, etc, so I am comfortable replacing the flooring. BUT, I am lost to many aspects of repairing the wall. I assume there is some form of plywood sheathing behind the aluminum paneled exterior wall. Is it possible for one to repair the damage with only access being from the inside of the camper? I am very hesitant to become invasive with the aluminum panels on the exterior. I would like to leave them on and in-tact if at all possible. Same thing with the roof in the bathroom. Can I repair from the inside? Again, I am confident in my ability to repair hang wallboard, paint, etc, but I have very little ability in body work! :@

With that said, is the camper worth repairing? I would hate to think that I have wasted this camper, because when I bought it, it had only been used a few times since new. But, I do understand that I have neglected it. Badly.

Thanks for any input!!!

Moderator edit to re-size pictures to forum recommended limit of 640px maximum width.

[joegray]

Water damage is like rust in your car, usually a lot worse than it looks. It sounds like your handy with tools,,,pull it apart and make a decision , you have nothing to lose. You may be able to repair it.

[smarty]

with the water damage as extensive as you describe it sounds like a write off

[dougrainer]

A GOOD 2006 your model brings 6k to 8k resale from dealer. BUT, you have in excess of 10k repairs needed if you were to pay an RV shop to fix the damage. If you do the work yourself, you could probably do the work in materials for about 2k to 3k. Expect to take in excess of 40 hours to do the work since you are a novice. To do just the floor would require removing the interior floor cabinets and then pull out the original decking and replace struts and floor decking. The walls have NO plywood at all. They will have Styrofoam and 1/8 inch interior wood paneling plus the exterior Filon. There will be metal and wood inserts in the walls to mount various cabinets and appliances. The walls are vacumm formed and are not like a residential wall with sheetrock and studs. Water damage unseen renders a lot of RV's junk and not worth repair. Doug

[shum02]

A least with the Starcraft's there is no coroplast cover over the bottom of the rig.

The roof is a luan sandwich as well. Pretty sure someone in the HTT forum did a Starcaft roof on a 215SBS not that long ago. That was the smaller cousin to the 235SBS

[BarneyS]

Moved to Tech Issues forum from DIY.

[mgirardo]

arnold97 wrote:
With that said, is the camper worth repairing? I would hate to think that I have wasted this camper, because when I bought it, it had only been used a few times since new. But, I do understand that I have neglected it. Badly.

Thanks for any input!!!

Only you can decide whether it is worth it to repair. It will be costly to have a RV Dealer repair it or a lengthy repair if you choose to do it yourself. It can be repaired, but unfortunately, the floor will never feel stiff again.

The walls and the floor are vacuum bonded. They build the walls and floors in panels. There is a layer of luan plywood that is glued to an aluminum sub frame with Styrofoam insulation between the aluminum rails then another layer of luan on top of the sub frame. These are then vacuum sealed which gives them a lot of rigidity.

We owned a 3 bunk Hybrid TT (in my signature). It was a great trailer, but eventually we found a soft floor in the front half of the trailer. Water leaked in from the bottom of a storage compartment that was not caulked from the factory. The repair was pretty straight forward. With the help of a friend, we removed all the furniture, then peeled back the vinyl/linoleum floor. Then we pulled up all the rotted wood. We also removed most of the styrofoam. I left the beds down and kept the TT open for about a week in the middle of a GA summer to make sure everything dried out. Then I replaced the styrofoam and pit down 1/4 inch oak plywood.

After putting all the furniture back in place, the floor was not solid. It flexed in places because the vacuum bonding had been broken. I ended up putting 3 2x4s between the trailer's frame rails as I-Beams to help add some strength to the floor, but it still wasn't as solid as before the water damage. Definitely better than before the 2x4s, but still a little soft. It did not feel unsafe, just a little soft under our feet.

In your case, you'll most likely have to replace the entire floor. There may be 2 soft spots now, but most likely a lot of the floor is wet and will eventually get soft. On ours, the water entry point was small. I could see where the water entered. It basically traveled about 5 feet from the entry point towards the opposite wall and about 5 feet back towards the rear of the trailer.

The cost to make repairs maybe totaled $100 give or take. It took about 2 days to get the furniture, hot water heater, fresh water tank and the rotted wood out of the HTT. Probably another 2 days to put it back together and add the I-Beams.

You can probably easily make the repairs yourself, just make sure you find and fix the leaks and make sure everything dries out thoroughly before putting it back together.

Good luck,

-Michael

[shum02]

The Antigua's by Starcraft where/are prone to leaking if you don't do the maintenance, especially when they are this old. I had that exact same 235SBS and we really liked it. I think it's worth fixing.

Try this web site on youtube. RV Roof Install

Seems pretty knowledgeable, you probably might glean some info from it.

[MarkTwain]

Suggest you take the trailer into a RV shop and let them inspect the damage and then give you an estimate of the cost to make all the repairs. Based on that estimate, let that help you decide if it is worth it to try and fix it. Do you have the expertise to do a full inspection of all the water damage?

[Lwiddis]

I have no good vibes about the water damage. Three years of no roof maintenance on a 14 year old TT is death. It’s not how often the TT was used for camping.