siding

[joe_puma]

On a recent trip to Smoky Mountains, I noticed that the ribbed siding on my 10 year old Puma 28' camper was bowing out, like the wind from towing was pushing it out. I went to Ace and got some stainless screws and caps and silicone and added a couple screws to hold it in. Looked better coming home, but slight bow a little lower. Anyone ever have this type of issue, and how did you fix it? Any thoughts?

[Huntindog]

joe puma wrote:
On a recent trip to Smoky Mountains, I noticed that the ribbed siding on my 10 year old Puma 28' camper was bowing out, like the wind from towing was pushing it out. I went to Ace and got some stainless screws and caps and silicone and added a couple screws to hold it in. Looked better coming home, but slight bow a little lower. Anyone ever have this type of issue, and how did you fix it? Any thoughts?

Yes. On my 2001 Wilderness. It was the leading edge of the wall on the Passenger side. I used duct tape to get home. Then I removed the siding from that area. Basically from the door to the front of the TT. What I found was that very little holds that siding on. One small staple every 16" or so. The walls were 2x2s with totally random lengths between them. I installed horizontal 2x2s between the vertical ones so that I could staple the siding every 2". The most time consuming part was that every 2x2 was a different length. It really wasn't that bad of a job. In fact I did the other side too as a prevenative measure. Never had anymore trouble after that.

[ScottG]

I wouldn't worry too much about it. It's probably not getting air under it as much as the air moving over the outside is causing a low pressure area resulting in "lift" like an airplane wing.
Also, my last TT did that just because the insulation was pushing it outward a bit. But it was like that just sitting there.
I would make sure there's no cracks in the caulking anyplace but otherwise it should be OK.