After getting the new roof down, I'm moving on to the back of the trailer, which I had not planned on having problems. I'm now pretty sure the corner seams are the source of the water. It just funnels down the poorly sealed seams and into the corners of the subfloor. As we pulled apart the lasagna of sheet metal, we got a better sense of the extent of the damage (which was worse that I originally thought it would be, but better than I started to fear!) on the floor and along some of the back frame. It did feel pretty daunting. The question is: with rain on the way, do I keep taking it apart and opening it up or stop, or . . . ? So I had to buy ANOTHER tarp that would cover the whole trailer so we could keep going. I picked up the supplies to rebuild a part of the frame, and some subfloor for this phase but the fixing will have to wait until the sun comes out again. Big thanks to Fernando for taking on the day's challenge.
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When I took the Possum to the RV shop for a run down of its woes, the helpful staffer Chris estimated it would take 50 hours to replace the roof (which is why they would charge $5k to do it!) "It's not rocket science," he said, "it just takes a long time." After a great Day 1, I thought he must have exaggerated massively. After a slow-going day 2, I still felt pretty confident that we'd do it in half the time. After Day 3 and 4 . . . now 50 hours seems about right. BUT . . . the roof is now glued down. Woot! It's just going to take a while longer to get it locked down with the termination bars because now I have to take apart the front and back before I can put those brackets back on. These early fall rains are not bringing Hurricane Harvey like last year, but they make putting on a roof an exercise in tarp wrestling again and again. I was soaked through at least two more times.
I found a great video tutorial on replacing a travel trailer roof here. What an incredible help. Day 1 went swell, getting the awning off, unscrewing the termination bars that hold the old roof on, and removing the vents and A/C from the roof and getting the old roof peeled (eh, flaked) off. Day 2 is another story: stalled by a rotten patch of wood, come and go rain clouds, wrestling with a monstrous tarp once, twice, three times. I was soaked through and through on the outside, and admittedly my spirit was pretty waterlogged too.
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The Possum
A story of reviving a travel trailer Archives
April 2019
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