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Old 11-11-2007, 09:25 AM   #1
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No Wood Backing in Foam

On the way back from the Tucson Rally, we encountered heavy side winds on I-10 near Deming, NM. My awning was torn loose and blown over the top of our trailer and wiped everything off the top....solar panels, AC, Ref vents....everything. After the excitement of tying the darn thing down in the wind, we made it into Las Cruces and had a trailer company remove the awning. When I crawled on top I could not believe the damage. Later estimates were $8,700. I spoke with Ken at NH and he didn't see how such a thing was possible. I later discovered how and why the awning turned loose, the lower rear awning bracket had no wood backing in the foam. Lag screws were screwed in the foam and they stripped right out and the rivets on the rear plate of the awning stripped which allowed the whole awning to slide backward. The end result was that the awning and it's hardware was free to allow the legs to go back over the trailer and damage everything on top and the sides. I had all this repaired and got busy with a stud finder to find where else there was no wood backing for screws in the foam and I found several other places. One place was the closet in the rear of the trailer within the bath. The closet rod kept falling down with the wife's clothes and the shelf above was loose. Well, the whole thing was just screwed into the foam. I documented all this along with suggestions for how to avoid this in production and sent it along to Phil, Mike, and Ken at NH. Guess what? They didn't even give me the courtesy of an answer. Just silence. Didn't do much for my confidence in NH or in my interest in buying another NH.
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Old 11-13-2007, 03:08 AM   #2
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What year is your unit? Have you heard back form NH yet?
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Old 01-12-2008, 10:57 PM   #3
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We had our main awning (A&E automatic) torn off in very strong and sudden dust devil in clear weather in Baja California del Norte last winter. I replaced the awning material, brackets and arms myself after finding no one that would come to our RV lot in So California to repair the same.

I also found a similar “faith-based” fastener system that “gaither” experienced.

This winter while traveling along an overgrown two-lane highway in Southern Costal Pacific Mexico, a tree branch “grabbed” a street-side slideout topper and pulled the front half loose. It was held in place with 1 1/2” square drive #10 ferrous screws into wood headers. We have 3” of insulation in the roofs.

I replaced all of the sidewall bracket mountings with all stainless bolts, large fender washers and nylon lock nuts (so as not to compress the sidewall sandwich unduly) to distribute the load over the inside of the luan and foam core sandwiched sidewall. In places where I could not access the inside of the sidewall, I used 3/16” and ¼” stainless steel toggles. These are available at marine stores such as West Marine and at some specialty fastener suppliers.

In the case of the topper screws, I replaced them with ¼” x 3” 400 series stainless self-drilling hex-head screws.

I use stainless (either 300 or 400 series depending upon the application) for all exterior fasteners whenever possible because most of the original ferrous stuff has rusted to some extent. We live part of the year in southern Montana and have used our rig in -22F (coldest) and lots of snow on several occasions. The road salt wreaks havoc with zinc plated steel fasteners. We have also been right on the beach in Ixtapa, Zihuatenejo this winter with the salt spray in the air—beautiful and warm, but not so good for stuff containing iron.

There have been countless times when I have been upset by what I consider substandard work on the NH. However, we have a neighbor at our So California RV lot who has a 3-year old custom Prevost motorhome who paid $1 million more than we for our truck and trailer and it has quality problems as well as a serious weight overload problem on the front axle (granite & carpet floors), though not nearly as many as our rig. It is my view that, if the NH or any of the 5th wheel trailers, or any of the motorhomes below a Country Coach Magna were of the quality of the high-end motorhomes or of yacht quality, their price would be unreachable for most of us. Soooo, I just go ahead and repair the problems when they occur and I do revel in the fact that our very well equipped and comfortable rig handles the hottest desert or tropical climate as well as the -22F mentioned above and it is short enough overall and kingpin to rear axle to handle all of the mountain hairpin turns we have encountered so far.
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Old 05-22-2009, 01:50 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob&Donna
What year is your unit? Have you heard back form NH yet?
2000

Eventually, but Phil claimed that he never got my letter. Then he answered with pure unadulterated B.S. It is my view that this is what he is best at. Structural defects in my rig were explained away by him as 1. that happened before I bought N.H. or 2. we don't do it that way now.

Isn't that just special?
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Old 05-22-2009, 10:28 PM   #5
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We've had our share of issues with Phil and others -- customer relations just doesn't seem to be one of his strong points. Persistence and self-help are always going to be, unfortunately, characteristics that one needs to deal with NH after the sale. But, in the end, we're happy with our rig and feel that there are fewer problems than with others we've followed through friends that have had major issues. (On the other hand, we've never checked out whether things are attached to studs or foam . . . maybe we need to look at this!)

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Old 07-15-2009, 11:26 AM   #6
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Hi Again:

In case you wondered, Phil cruises these comments. He called me after my last post. He was most unhappy with me. Got rather exercised.

I reiterated that it's a lame excuse to blame quality/design problems of my unit on Harold Johnson.

I would suggest that if he spent more time listening to owners and their problems and trying to correct them and less time getting exercised at owners, he might be on the road to some success at NH.

One good thing about Harold Johnson and the crew that worked for him, if you had a problem with your unit, they tried to fix it.
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Old 07-31-2009, 10:01 AM   #7
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I too have found that the lag screws in the bottom of my awning were just in the foam and were stripped to boot. I added some wood to the holes and hopefully they will hold. I had to have my awning replaced when we went to pick up our rig, and it was moved.
In addition to that, my switch column that's just inside our front door, was just mounted into foam and it pulled away from the wall. After several attempts, I finally used concrete screw in anchors and screwed it back in place. So far, so good.
We have a '07 model.
Rick
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