waterproofing slide floor

Depends on what the new floor is made of.
If you have to stay in it, whatever you use will just about have to be water based.

It's plywood. I'm hoping someone can share some experience good or bad with specific products.

Go to any tile store, Home Depot or Lowes and get a gallon of waterproof material like Aquadefense. Roll it on, then put your new carpet down.

Plywood will already be a lot better then OSB. You could use a outdoor spar varnish. Usually the water wicks into the wood from the edges and not the top or bottom.

Since the new floor is already installed, any suggestions on how to get to the edges to seal them?

First thing I would do is caulk around all the edges, joints, etc that you can get to. Use Dicor non-levelling. Then a good quality exterior water-based polyurethane like Varathane It's not cheap but you don't need tons. Check the caulking and possibly reapply the poly annually.

How did the water damage occure to begine with? From inside? Usally the floor is pre treated at the factory and no sealant is recomended? Did you use marine grade plywood or normal? If just sealing the top paint or varnish it. I wouldn't do both sides. The idea is that the wood breathes and drys out on its own. My knowlage is based on pop ups ( bed slides) and my TT with a bed slide. But they never recomended sealing the wood, that was a big no no.

unfortunately the water damage occurred while I was having emergency brain surgery in Florida in the middle of a pandemic, followed by 2 months of f radiation and chemo. While I was stuck in Florida the RV was home in Texas with the slide extended when a big storm apparently hit. The good news is the surgery and subsequent radiation and chemo turned out very well. But by the time I got home the floor was rotted out. I was thinking that if I had waterproofed the floor the damage wouldn't have been as bad.

I appreciate your comments about not sealing the floor. That makes sense.

I will tell you to be thankful for what you have. When you are a 20 year old you feel invincible. When you are 65 and one emergency surgery and a few hours away from death, you get a new appreciation for the things that are important.

bamaboy wrote:
unfortunately the water damage occurred while I was having emergency brain surgery in Florida in the middle of a pandemic, followed by 2 months of f radiation and chemo. While I was stuck in Florida the RV was home in Texas with the slide extended when a big storm apparently hit. The good news is the surgery and subsequent radiation and chemo turned out very well. But by the time I got home the floor was rotted out. I was thinking that if I had waterproofed the floor the damage wouldn't have been as bad.

I appreciate your comments about not sealing the floor. That makes sense.

I will tell you to be thankful for what you have. When you are a 20 year old you feel invincible. When you are 65 and one emergency surgery and a few hours away from death, you get a new appreciation for the things that are important.

Glad you have recovered!

bamaboy wrote:


While I was stuck in Florida the RV was home in Texas with the slide extended when a big storm apparently hit. The good news is the surgery and subsequent radiation and chemo turned out very well. But by the time I got home the floor was rotted out. I was thinking that if I had waterproofed the floor the damage wouldn't have been as bad.

I appreciate your comments about not sealing the floor. That makes sense.

So glad to hear you recovered.

Trying to help here as I have been through slide floor rot and repaired the floor myself.

Something is not adding up to what caused the first damage. Yes, I understand a bad storm, but to rot out the floor, partly or totally takes more time then 2 to 4 months. I'm going by your words, rotted out, like large damage and the floor has a hole in it or the OSB board is disintegrated falling apart in chips.

Odds may have been, you have a leak path that has been ongoing for some time, allowing water to seep in. The big storm may have been the last straw and you noticed it.

Posting pictures of the side end walls, the underneath bottom ends of the slide, and the overall slide in general will help us see how yours is built. There has been slide construction design issues over the years. Some manufactures solved the issues, and others still build them the same way they have failed for the last 10 years.

Also, do you have a slide topper on the slide?

Are there windows in the end walls of the slide that open? (like sliding windows?)

I did not want to type a long note of how some design slides leak until we even know which design you have. The best is, know how the first slide floor failed and where the leak came from. Then make sure the cause is no longer and then treat the areas needed.

Hope this helps.

John