repairing water damage

this thread will show how to repair water damage on a fiberglass/stud constructed RV.  in this design instead of aluminum siding the manufacturer used fiberglass laminated to very thin plywood then glued and stapled to the studs.  this repair method is interchangeable for aluminum or fiberglass.

1st you need to remove the side molding and bottom and top molding.

 

you can see the corner molding and one light off.  you only need to remove the light 100% if the whole wall is to be removed if the wall can stay in place leave the lights wired like in the pic.



this pic shows the corner and the top and bottom molding.  be careful when removing the molding it bends real easy.  once the molding is off clean all the old sealant off.



this pic shows the staples that hold the walls under the molding.  these staples must be removed.   major pita.



here you can see me pulling the fiberglass back.  notice the flex.  just be careful and you can prop the wall back and work on the wood under the wall without removing the whole wall.

more to come.  highdesertranger

round 2

since we were working on this I couldn't get step be step pics.  had to work on it,  then take pics.  I should have gotten pics of the rotten wood,  sorry.  but here's the repair.



in this pic you can see the new wood in place.  basically you need to remove the rotten wood.  cut out the studs past the rot so you only have good wood.  you can see the bottom 2x2 and a small repair on the corner 2x2.  notice the added 2x2 this is to strengthen the repaired corner.  all the repaired wood is glue with Tite-Bound III,  water proof wood glue.  then the rapier was screwed together with lifetime deck screws.  the screwing was done with predrilled counter sunk holes and pocket screwing.  make sure you keep everything square. 



another view of the wood repair.  notice the stupid pink insulation.  if we had unlimited funds we would have replaced it with rigid foam.  when we pulled the wall the insulation and the wood were soaked.  had to air dry for a few days and luckily there was no mold.  notice the new piece of wood at the bottom.  this is 2 pieces of 1/4 inch plywood that we glued together.  we did it this way because wiring pass though here and it was easy to make a wire channel when you use 2 pieces.  this piece was originally OSB,  it basically fell to pieces and not much was left of it but powder.  this is one reason I am anti OSB.  this pic also shows the bottom membrane stapled back in place.  notice the white on the plywood that is laminated to the fiberglass.  I will cover that on the next pic.



another shot from the other side.  you can see the white on the plywood.  the plywood was delaminating.  so we shot a bunch of adhesive sealant
into the plywood and spread it out with a putty knife.  we let it sit for a couple of days this reattached the plywood to the fiberglass.   if you notice in this pic the white dots on the 2x2 this is the original screw holes,  they were all filled with sealant.  this is so the screws all get a fresh bite.



reassembled corner.  we used 3M 5200 for adhesive.  what ever the manufacturer used didn't stick very well from the factory. 



another shot of the repair corner.  after the 2 pieces where in place I sealed the corner with 5200 to make it water tight,  the factory did not do this step.  we then reinstalled the corner trim with butyl tape like the factory did.  this gave it a triple seal to keep water out.
that's all for now any questions ask away.  I wish I had a photographer to document stuff,  I would have had a lot more pics that would have given better detail.  highdesertranger

highdesertranger said:

snip
reassembled corner.  we used 3M 5200 for adhesive.  what ever the manufacturer used didn't stick very well from the factory.  we then reinstalled the corner trim with butyl tape like the factory did.  this gave it a triple seal to keep water out.
highdesertranger

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Nice to see a write-up on the correct way to do this repair.