Front Slide Leak - FIXED!

markpj23 · 05-20-2010, 08:31 PM

We have an 09 Beaver Contessa 43 with 4 slides. I've been chasing a leak in the rear corner of the front driver side slide for the past few weeks. Had it to the dealer, they found nothing during a water test. Yet a week later after steady rains the carpet was soaked again.

Here's what I found, and I suggest other Beaver /Monaco owners check for this on their slide also:

- Water runs down the outside of the rear wall of the slide, goes over the bottom corner edge and then carries underneath the slide before it finally drips off and falls to the ground.
- The slide room floor is a piece of plywood. This plywood has its END GRAIN EXPOSED underneath the slide right beneath the corner bead / edge at the bottom corner of the slide.
- Water was going over the corner bead / edge and being soaked into the exposed end-grain of the plywood.

My fix was to take some Devcon 2-part epoxy and completely coat / seal the exposed end grain of the plywood. Once that had cured, I also applied exterior silicone calk between the plywood end and the corner bead. Now the water that runs underneath the slide has nowhere to go except fall to the ground.

Lousy design / construction if you ask me. (Who would've thought that plywood exposed to the elements would wick water??? DOH!) Hope this helps someone else find the leak source. This one drove me nuts for a long time!

DriVer · 05-21-2010, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by markpj23

This one drove me nuts for a long time!

Mark, Congratulations on resolving your water leak. I'm sure it was very frustrating for you and you probably cracked open a cold one when you saw that the fix worked! Stick that in your Funk & Wagnals!