American Coach: 1999 Tradition: Water Damaged Walls

[Trexoffroad]

Wondering if any of you have had water damage to your interior walls? This monsoon season in Arizona has been really good! But that means a lot of water. And my coach has some bubbling on the interior wall between the small window next to entry door and the big window behind it. Right where the seat belt attaches to wall. It’s pretty “crunchy “ there so I know I have to repair it. Question is: has anyone done it? Or is there a website that describes the repair process? Taking it to a shop isn’t an option at this point so I need to do it myself. I am fully capable given instructions and correct tools.

Anyone have any experience?

[WalkTheWalk]

I cant speak to your model, but we just finished this repair on a Wildwood TT. If you can see replies by me, you can find it from about 10 days ago.

We had water coming out the lower corner of the oval kitchen window, and water pooling on the kitchen countertop. Next, we found black mold inside the wall when we removed the satellte TV switch plate.

First step is find the water source. Its there somewhere.

It had been raining day after day after day, and we thought the source was the Winegard crank up. It wasnt. A very small 2-3" gap opened where the EPDM roof tucks under the metal trim moulding at the edge of the roof. It worked loose somehow.

We tarped the roof, taping it down and putting stones on top.

Then, waited for two dry days to fix the roof.

Then came drying out the interior. Two 70 pint dehumidifiers, onecin the tub, one in the kitchen sink with short drain hoses, set on max.

We had to remove every wallplate there. Couldnt use a hair dryer to dry it out because of the mold, so we set up two ION brand ionizer/ozonators, and hung about 8 RV Mildew Odor Control sachets made by Starbrite. These use powdered chlorine dioxide that kills mold spores, as does the ozone, as does low humidity. We let all that run for two weeks, going back to the roof.

We had to use a hair dryer to spot dry the OSB where that roof edge came loose, which luckily was not rotted, then used RV roof glue to reglue it, rolling the roof back flat, taping it down temporarily with painters masking tape. Finally, we used Eternabond and Dicor to finish that task.

Except, after all that, theres still water stained wallpaper. Cosmetic. My wife will fix that.

Had I inspected our roof this spring,as I always have, none of this would've happened. Dozens and dozens of hours, hundreds of dollars wasted. And it spawned 3 dozen tasks.

So glad were 95% now.

Step 1: Check the roof for a leak.

[WalkTheWalk]

If youre lucky, the upper window sprung a leak due to a crack in the sealant. You can fix that by cleaning with windex, then recaulking with RV clear silicone from Home Depot. Or, better yet, get clear gutter silicone caulk in the gutters department.

Starbrite sells a regular caulking gun tube, marine rated clear silicone, for a whopping $20 on Amazon. Thats what we used. Worked great.

But, we sealed our kitchen window, only to later find the roof leak. So check the roof first. Dont assume its the window. Like we did.

Also, if your trailer has aluminum siding, there are horizontal seams every 2 feet or so that are caulked with clear silicone caulk. Check that, too.

A hose test is helpful.