The last time we had the camper out, we drove through some heavy rains. We we got to the campground, there was a puddle of water on the floor, just forward of the leading edge of the slide. Another Camplite owner (14DBS) stopped by our site to ask us about our camper. He really likes his, but he says he does leak at the slide when towing in heavy rains.
Today, I took a house and forcefully hit the slide with a lot of water at full force. I could not get it to leak. I'm wondering if it is actually leaking from the bottom, perhaps from tire spray. Has anyone else experienced this?
Thanks,
Doug
[quote source="/post/2888/thread" timestamp="1408888706" author="@djsamuel"]Today, I took a house and forcefully hit the slide with a lot of water at full force. I could not get it to leak. I'm wondering if it is actually leaking from the bottom, perhaps from tire spray. Has anyone else experienced this?
Thanks,
Doug[/quote][font size="3"]Doug,
Do you have the factory sprayed "insulation" on the bottom of the floor and/or do you have any rubber like flooring on the inside? Reports of dust and water infiltration led me to get the bottom sprayed, but certainly not for the thermal insulation. If you have or temporarily place an impervious membrane, even some poly plastic sheeting, on the floor it might help determine if water is coming from above or below the floor. I've not had this problem, but then, it never rains in Florida :D.
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Doug:
I suspect that the water you are seeing is coming up from under the floor rather than from the slideout. As I learned from another thread, LL simply butts each of the floor aluminum panels together when they assemble the trailer. There is no sealant between them. Heavy rain will kick up water and cause what you experience.
I can think of several solutions:
1. Spray some kind of sealant like auto undercoating underneath. This will be tough to get to all of the places due to tanks and equipment in the way.
2. Use some kind of floor covering that will block the water. I used carpet squares that have a thin plastic backing with a bit of adhesive that will probably block the water. The interlocking rubber exercise mat stuff will probably work better.
3. Squirt a bead of sealant: silicon rubber or caulking along each seam from above and trowel it down into the joint to seal it. A lot of work and then you HAVE to cover the floor as it will look like a mess.
David
Anyone know if the vinyl floor (I think that now comes standard) will also work in blocking that water?
Thanks for the thoughts concerning the floor being the source of the leaking. Due to the location of the water right at the edge of the slide, I never even thought of the floor. I do not have the insulation and there is no covering on the floor.
I'll have to investigate that further. I also found some evidence of slide leakage when I removed the bottom corner piece (front of the slide) that covers the joint between the horizontal and vertical angle pieces. The vertical piece did not line up with the horizontal. This resulted in two issues; the gap between the two pieces was not caulked and water could run right up the gap (especially when wind driven by driving), and the gaskets at the bottom did not compress to the same degree as at the top of the slide. I realigned them a bit and caulked the seam. We'll see if that helps, and I will further investigate the floor.
Thanks again.
Doug
[quote source="/post/2889/thread" timestamp="1408891019" author="@charliem"]>>>>Reports of dust and water infiltration led me to get the bottom sprayed, but certainly not for the thermal insulation.
Why not for thermal insulation? Did you have it done at the factory? Could you post some pictures. I'm interested in what it looks like
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[quote source="/post/3053/thread" timestamp="1409260512" author="@antares4141"][quote source="/post/2889/thread" timestamp="1408891019" author="@charliem"]>>>>Reports of dust and water infiltration led me to get the bottom sprayed, but certainly not for the thermal insulation.
Why not for thermal insulation? Did you have it done at the factory? Could you post some pictures. I'm interested in what it looks like
[/quote][/quote][font size="3"]The coating was done by LL and cost $1000. I thought it would help with dust/air/water intrusion, but due to the method of application, I don't think it really solved the problem. The product is sprayed on to about a 20 mil thickness. The shadowing of the spraying leaves exposed cracks in the floor planking.
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[font size="3"]The product is Lizard Skin and is a ceramic based hard surfaced thin coating designed to protect automotive surfaces against high radiant heat.
[a href="http://www.lizardskin.com/car-ceramic-insulation.html"]Lizard Skin[/a]
IMO it is totally misapplied here. It provides virtually no thermal insulation and the method of application does not seal the floor joints. It would be useful if the bottom of the trailer needed protection from 1000F temperatures, but we don't get there even in Florida. My recommendation is save the $1000 and use it to address the cold floor from above.
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Thanks, I was curious about the "insulation". Doesn't really sound like an appropriate material to use. I envisioned spray on polyurethane foam like you would do a metal building with.
http://www.sprayfoam.org
Problem is it's porous comes in closed cell so probably adequate water resistance but road splash would be hard to clean off. If you were to lay some wax paper over the freshly sprayed surface and peal it off after it dried I bet it would be acceptable though.
[font size="3"]Anything thick enough to provide thermal insulation would interfere with installation of water/waste tanks and other necessary stuff underneath. A better and cheaper approach would have been a spray on rubber based automotive undercoat with multi-directional spraying to seal cracks. That product is designed for the application and would solve the road spray and air/dust infiltration problem. Thermal insulation cannot be provided without allowing physical space for some type of foam. The utility of the aluminum floor conflicts with the appeal of a warm/cool insulated floor. The best solution so far is the removable interlocking rubber mat flooring several owners have installed.
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[quote source="/post/3067/thread" timestamp="1409317379" author="@charliem"][font size="3"]Anything thick enough to provide thermal insulation would interfere with installation of water/waste tanks and other necessary stuff underneath.
[/font][/quote]I suspected 1" of foam might complicate installations underneath but didn't think it would be prohibitive. Some items like plumbing could be installed before hand. You could lay a substrate over it and it would become a composite not all that different from the walls and ceiling but I thought that would become overly complected, overkill and add unnecessary weight. I actually years ago fooling around with polyurethane foam did what I suggested and it completely changed the characteristics of the material on the surface. Had almost a glass like smoothness. Created a thin durable shell like layer on the surface. You could probably poke through it with something like the end of a pencil but I would think large flat objects would mount up against it nicely and it would dampen vibration. I have no idea how these things are attached though so I'll just take your word for it.