Discolored floor

["007"]

It looks to me like a water leak near the corner of your refer and vent intake for furnace.
I would check around the outside of your furnace perimeter and refer vent for poor sealent seals on outside wall of coach or like mine no sealent on top of the furnace opening.
When your awning is out you will not notice water coming in just when its raining and awning is rolled up.
Water fed thru top of furnace and along top of it onto vinyl flooring.
Open furnace vent under refer to see whats going on and check your plumbing under sink and stove.
Water will travel distant places may not be coming in where you think.

[northerngmc]

Well I think I have found the problem.

I cut the discolored flooring out and the subfloor was wet.

I then started looking for where the water could enter.

The furnace looked good.

The outside light looked good.

The electrical outlet looked like it wasn't sealed properly, but everything was dry behind it. I have sealed it better.

I then took the water tank fill off and the hose clamp was rusty and it was wet under it. I then filled my tank with a garden hose to test it and when the tank was full water leaked at the end of the hose where it contected to the filler. I guess everytime I have filled my trailer with a hose, which is most times, I have had water leaking in.

The subfloor dried up and I am going to leave it exposed for a while to wick out all the water in the subfloor under the cabinets before installing new flooring. The subfloor looks fine, so hopefully I got to it soon enough.

Thanks to all for your suggestions........

[Jeff_in_The_Dalles]

Glad you found the source of the leak.

If the sub floor is less than 100% once it has dried out, it might be a better to replace the bad wood now, since you have the flooring torn up...

[450Donn]

There are products that are suppose to take care of the soft floor problem. Don't remember the name of it, but as I remember it is some sort of epoxy that can be spread on the effected area and it will migrate into the wood fiber and create a permanent fix.

[Imfletcher]

Hello All,

I had the same problem with the fresh water tank leaking for years before I bought my 5er. The entire floor under my dinette (where the tank was (you'll notice I used the word "was")located). The dry rot had destroyed the entire sub floor and wall sill plate in the rear corner of the trailer.

From my experience, I looked into the dry rot solution mentioned here and found it a little on the pricey side for my situation. You'll definitely want to go ahead and pull the floor and get all the insulation out from there. It acts like a sponge and keeps the moisture right up next to the wood and it's almost impossible to get completely dry. When I replaced my subfloor and sill plate in my trailer, I used rigid insulation so that if it did infact leak again, the moisture would just run off and not be held next to any wood.

My situation was almost a blessing in disguise because I was able to configure the interior to my specifications which gave me much more storage, seating and sleeping then the original trailer offered.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. These forums were very beneficial to me when I was renovating my 5er and I want to help others who are going through the same issues.

Thanks,

Pat

[northerngmc]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by 450Donn:
There are products that are suppose to take care of the soft floor problem. Don't remember the name of it, but as I remember it is some sort of epoxy that can be spread on the effected area and it will migrate into the wood fiber and create a permanent fix. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

What do you mean by "soft floor".

My subfloor looks good, but I will wait and see next spring.

[northerngmc]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Imfletcher:
Hello All,

I had the same problem with the fresh water tank leaking for years before I bought my 5er. The entire floor under my dinette (where the tank was (you'll notice I used the word "was")located). The dry rot had destroyed the entire sub floor and wall sill plate in the rear corner of the trailer.


Thanks,

Pat </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

It wasn't my tank itself that was leaking but where the tank from the hose connected to the outside filler. I imagine everytime I filled my trailer with water it must have leaked a 1/2 cup of water or so.

I am hoping that my savour is I use my trailer extensively in July and August and only then. The trailer sits in Alberta and is in a fairly dry location.

["007"]

I would say the floor will be ok will just need to recover the floor once its dry.
You have a good indicator with floor discoloring that something was wrong.

[tjy]

When we had a wooden Chris Craft boat I had
to deal with alot of "dryrot" and the product
then was called "GIT-ROCK
tom

[northerngmc]

Yes I am hoping I have caught it early enough to just dry out and refloor.

I googled "Git-Rock" and only came up with rock n roll type listings.

What do these dry rot products do?

[SteveB]

HI,
The stuff is called GIT-ROT

[Puffin]

Hi,

You're right! Git-Rot is a brand name for a product that actually doesn't fix the rotted wood, but impregnates most kinds of real wood with a polymer that fills the wood grain and surrounds the rot, hardening into a solid dense plastic that's hard as a rock. That plastic area won't stop the rot from creeping outward to adjoining wood, either.

I've owned a few wooden boats and have a little experience with that stuff. If you use it, it's best in a non-visible hidden area because of a dark color change. In the end, the only way to get rid of dry-rot is to cut it out and replace it with new wood, making sure you remove an area slightly larger than all the rot you can see. That stuff travels like a cancer!

Sorry for the long post. Good luck, Puffin