Water From Below

[Rabbit]

Two days ago here in Florida, we had a fairly serious rain. Over and over again I drove through puddles I'd estimate at 5-7" deep. The resulting splashes were higher than the fenders on my Chevy 4x4 full-sized pickup.

24 hours later I went back to the trailer and found a large soft spot in the floor that definitely wasn't there before. I couldn't do much about it right then, but first thing this morning I hooked up a small (750 watt) electric heater with a built-in fan pointed at the soft area. I can't easily inspect the damage visually, because there's boat-carpeting over it and _everything_ would have to come out of the trailer, not an easy job. And below is only mud/wet sand, so I'm not going crawling either if I can help it.

I'm reasonably certain the water came from below because the only (very slight, just a few drops) leak problem I've ever had before came through the air conditioner in an even more extreme, so far never-equaled downpour. This is the first time I've ever had to drive through through such deep water with the trailer, however, so I'm figuring that's the cause.

All that said...

1) Can anyone think of anything better to try than the heater? Should I be doing anything else? For information, it's warm, sunny and breezy enough now that I doubt I could do much more than Mother Nature already is about the airflow on the underside.

2) Is the damage likely to be both significant and permanent? A little warping is okay-- I can live with it for the 2-3 years I plan to keep this trailer before moving up to a larger/better (and with luck all-aluminum) one anyway.

3) If the damage _is_ significant and permanent and I'm forced to replace the floor... What are some suggestions for a material more resistant to this kind of damage?

Thanks!

 

[highdesertranger]

if you have a soft floor the damage is significant and didn't just happen. also I doubt it came from below, physics and all. I don't know what your floor is made out of, if it's OSB anything would be better. the best material would be Marine plywood. slow down why are you splashing water over your fenders? highdesertranger

 

[John61CT]

First off, perhaps not for you, but general principles, maybe helpful for others in the design stage of a custom or retrofit buildout.

Google for

greenhouse bench OR shelving

in plastic, usually 24" x 48" or 18” x 36” units

and put in a galv steel or aluminum chassis support matrix for those, designed for the plastic grid plane is a flush plane

puncture resistant flooring laid on top, can use wood, but keep it light like 1/8" or even luan, and make it waterproof and ideally removable.

If an optional protective skin is put underneath the metal support framing, then that whole air space between can be filled with closed cell waterproof pourable expanding foam.

Otherwise a skin of insulating foam panels between the top of the grid and the flooring

A buildout designed where everything can be removed relatively easily,

helps for inspection, fixes & cleaning

avoid any carpeting other than removable throw rugs or runners.

wood is almost as bad, except maybe full marine-spec ply fully encapsulated in epoxy.

But man is that overkill heavy, real waste of weight.

 

[Rabbit]

Thank you both very much! For what it's worth, my floor is "ordinary" plywood in a 2006 (I think) trailer. I'd have done something to seal it, but it'd lasted so long already (over ten years) with only need for minor repairs that I figured I'd get the additional three I wanted out of it, no problem. Oops... It was for certain sound last May as per visual inspection, and... That soft spot didn't exist five days ago. I did some work that had me standing there repeatedly.


HDR-- I was trying not to be rear-ended. Visibility was terrible, and there were all sorts of warnings coming in about a tornado that, as it turned out, was actually on the ground at the time not too far away. (I'm unsure of the exact distance, but it definitely hit the same small town I was in.) I'm from tornado country and knew it had to be a small one at most (which it was, causing little damage), but a lot of other drivers were clearly panicking and I judged going even slower to be the greater risk. At no point was I in danger of hydroplaning-- I was making at most 5-8 MPH on nearly-new tires while in the deep puddles. But sadly many other drivers-- who were almost universally going much faster and throwing water even higher as they roared past me-- did. While I personally witnessed no accidents, there were many cars and especially pickups in the ditches.

Overall, it was a busy day for the local emergency services.

 

[John61CT]

Most US made RV/trailers are pretty much designed and built so that 10-years is a pretty good run without having to fix anything major.

I know owners that spend more on maintenance work every year than many DIYers do on their whole rig.

And the DIY route often results in higher quality.