2000 Endeavor Floor Replacement and Remodel

[Ted DuPuis]

Somewhere shortly before the last trip my wife, and I quote her in her own words, "Fell through the [bleeping] floor" of our 2000 H.R. Endeavor. I considered her statement to be a slight exaggeration, but some tiles in front of the bathroom door had sagged through the plywood below. As a bandaid fix I took a few pieces of click-lock flooring to put over the area, but it was also clear we were going to do something we hoped we'd not have to do - tear up the tile on our floor.

To back up a bit, we bought our Endeavor in July and although we saw a couple of cracked tiles in front of the fridge and bathroom, the floor felt solid and there was no indication that the subfloor was rotting. Some musty smell but nothing particularly significant. In our 6 month or so ownership, the smell got worse and then the floor degraded enough that she fell through it.

So, we started ripping up tiles and tearing down walls, removing the Norcold fridge (which needed to be rebuilt anyway).

Tearing things up was honestly not as bad as I had expected. While this RV was pretty well built, it's still not built like a house and everything came apart fairly easily. We found that the top layer of plywood in the tiled area was rotted essentially the full width of the RV between the fridge area through the bathroom door. It appears that this rot has stemmed from a water leak from the slide seals and potentially from the water supply hoses and drain pipes for the slide. Within the center of that area (basically around the sliding doorway area and right in front of the bathroom door) the lower plywood was also rotten.

Underneath the fridge, the support plywood was very rotted too. I'm surprised the fridge hadn't fallen through the floor, and I suspect that's probably mostly because of the fact that it's screwed to the wall behind it. The fridge has fiberglass insulation on either side, and the forward side (which is in a position to get a lot of hot, moist air from the propane heater) had a lot of mold growth as well behind the insulation. Really, it's a good thing that we're doing what we're doing here and addressing this.

Now that we've owned the RV for about 6 months and 8,000 miles, we've gotten a pretty good idea of how we use it, things we like and don't like. So we're going to make some changes that may be radical in some ways but will make the RV more what we want.

1) We're removing the Norcold fridge and going to replace it with a larger residential fridge. With 5 of us (including 3 kids) more fridge space is nice. But also more freezer space. We find the biggest drawback of the Norcold fridge is the limited freezer space. We got the Norcold fridge out through the front door and have a few fridges we're looking at to replace it. We'll seal off the roof and wall vents, insulate them, and that should improve the temps inside.

2) We're removing the propane heater from the RV. This is probably not a popular thing to do. However, we've used it a few times, including on below freezing nights, and we really don't like it. The fact that it cycles on and off and we can't keep the fan blowing all the time makes for a restless night when sleeping with that. With two heat pumps, the generator, and the fact that we're almost always hooked up to shore power (so we can use space heaters), all of which provide us a preferred quality of heat, we think this makes more sense for us. We've realized we're almost always driving with the generator running anyway, so deciding that it's mandatory isn't a big deal.

3) We've never liked the shower, and felt they could've put in a slightly larger round one without impeding too much on the space around the vanity. So we found a residential shower that's 38" instead of 36", rounded instead of three sides of an octagon, and will install that. It will require modifying the wall between the shower and the hallway near the bathroom, but we're having to do something with that anyway.

All in all a lot of work, but at the end of it it'll be "ours" and I think we'll be much happier with the end result. Pics to follow.

[Ted DuPuis]

[1doodadd]

This link may give you some ideas on the job coming up:

https://daveandljs.com/rv-flooring-and-finishes/

[Outbound]

Not sure about heat pumps being your major source of heat, they blow cooler air and are not a great heat source when temps drop to freezing. IMHO

[Ted DuPuis]

Originally Posted by Outbound

Not sure about heat pumps being your major source of heat, they blow cooler air and are not a great heat source when temps drop to freezing. IMHO

Certainly a consideration. We've camped with this below freezing and it's not proven to be an issue. The times we used the propane were more experimenting than anything. Augmenting with space heaters if needed I think will be plenty. We also don't make our way to particularly cold locations.

[clifford j]

Ted, I like the way your thinking out side the box, no reason to stay with traditionally "RV" design's they force us to live with. Do what makes you comfortable, I do however have comment about removing the propane furnace,,, If you absolutely need the cubic space for 'other things' more important go for it, bear in mind at one point you may decide to put the RV on the market and without a furnace it may limit your selling market. The residential frig is a ++ for sure.

CLIFFORD

[Ted DuPuis]

Originally Posted by clifford j

Ted, I like the way your thinking out side the box, no reason to stay with traditionally "RV" design's they force us to live with. Do what makes you comfortable, I do however have comment about removing the propane furnace,,, If you absolutely need the cubic space for 'other things' more important go for it, bear in mind at one point you may decide to put the RV on the market and without a furnace it may limit your selling market. The residential frig is a ++ for sure.

Thanks for the encouragement. Absolutely a valid point on resale, and something we discussed prior to this decision. Our logic is that we don't expect to be the last owners of this RV and resale will eventually occur, but we do expect to own it long enough that we feel making changes that will improve our experience are more important than foregoing those changes due to potential resale considerations. So for us, it makes sense.

When we're done with this there will certainly be plenty of outside-the-box changes to it. But hopefully the "right" buyer will see the value in those changes when the day comes.

[jacwjames]

I assume the furnace was below the Norcold and to be able to install a residential you need the extra headroom.


I think the pluses of the residential refrigerator out way the loss of the furnace. We seldom use ours and rely on small cube heaters. Not a big issue on resale if the other improvements you are planning work out.



Besides, a 2000 model coach won't depreciate that much more anyway. Might as well make it what you want and enjoy.




Good luck and keep us posted.

[Ted DuPuis]

For those who are interested, I uploaded a video to my YouTube channel that shows a bit more about the rot:

https://youtu.be/iEtQ72z-_WM

I'll plan to post more videos on my channel (and more posts here, of course) about the upgrade as it continues. But this weekend my plan is to put new rod and main bearings plus a new oil pump in my 3126B (might do a video on that too).

[Ted DuPuis]

For those who've gone through this before, any suggestions on a sealer/primer/mold killer paint to use on the wood before putting it down, or to paint over the wood we're not replacing?

My wife found this that looks appealing:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Lanco-1-...63-4/204071924

[veraken]

Take a look at this product. It's what Ernie Ekberg (the flooring guru) uses.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000NZ73SE...v_ov_lig_dp_it

[jacwjames]

What flooring are you looking at installing and over what area?

[Ted DuPuis]

As we continue working on our flooring and preparing for putting new stuff down (which will be click lock) I’m wondering if anyone has done anything special to adhere it to the subfloor. I figure at the very least I should use a nail gun to put a couple nails at each end of a row to keep things from shifting. We’re planning on putting down an underlayment to help with insulation some as well as noise reduction, of course that means we can’t put any glue down (well I suppose we could, just two layers with one between the subfloor and underlayment then one between underlayment and floor).

I’m also thinking that since we’ll need to slide some sections of the flooring under the slide. It might be helpful at least for part of the subfloor area to use a 1/4” or otherwise thin piece of wood to basically make and slide a complete section under the slide and put that down. Yeah, adds more complexity and I may be missing a simpler and better way to do it.

The other thing I need to figure out is how I want to block off and seal up the fridge side access panel and ceiling vent since we’ll be going to a residential electric fridge.

[rmacdon61]

Big project and a good video on it. I had a big leak one winter from the fridge ceiling vent and the carpet was ruined. We choose to use a glue down vinyl flooring. Bought the thick plush for soft insulated floor. Just my opinion but I liked the idea of glue (water protection of sub floor) and no worry about coach movement disturbing a floating wood composite floor. My Endeavor had 2 furnaces as well as 2 heat pumps. Removed the furnace under the old fridge and installed a residential (Samsung). Great having a real fridge and freezer. You'll be very happy with your changes, especially the shower which is on my next to do list.