Rotted wood in walls

[Tacouser]

This has not been repaired as yet... after several calls to Thor they said they would not cover the repair... so now I am waiting for a appointment date to be repaired at the dealer

[RSSinMS]

I believe you have nailed the cause of this problem - it does not appear to be due to water wicked up into the exposed bottom end of the plywood. My RV drips here even though it has not been on the road in months. That said, could you post a pic of the location that you found leaking? Was it on the roof or along the corner trim?

[blw2]

I was asked a question in private message, and will copy the answer here for reference and to hopefully attach some photos. I've changed my response a bit here, having reviewed the pictures and refreshed my memory a bit.

The question I was asked, "Was your leak at the front corners, where the roof meets the overhang? Or was the leak through the corner trim somewhere?

Were you able to stop the leak? I agree with you, my RV is brand new, but the plywood is rotted like it has been wet since it rolled out of the factory.

Thanks for any help."

Yes, my rot was in the exact location circled in Diemaster's photo...passenger side. I first noticed it becasue the little metal trim that trims out that bottom edge was coming loosed just a bit and just looked wrong enough to catch my eye.

it was clearly coming from above at the roof line, dripping down the framework above and beside the door into that front facing return wall. I think it was also traveling down around the prebent insert trim too.

There was a screw at the very top end of the vinyl insert tacking the insert itself into place, and it was completely unsealed by the looks of it. The first screw or two under teh insert looked to be leakers as well.

Generally that whole area up on the roof was pretty shotty workmanship... the area T-seam defined by corner of the membrane, the very top end of the pre-bent insert corner trim, the trim that tacks down the leading edge of the membrane and the top portion of the front "nose cone" where it meets the pre-bent insert trim.

OK, so multiple posts to get a bunch of pictures.
These first few show the corner area, and a few I took furring the PDI that should have been hints to me. I could see there was some issues, poor fit and bad caulk jobs, but .... I had them re caulk as a punch list item, which they did. It looked better before I accepted, but in hind site....oh well.

[blw2]

first picture is the screw I think was the primary leaker. The caulk was just barely not sealing at the edge of the screw head. The top few screws that were under the insert also looked to be issues. In fact all of the screws down and most of the way around the bend were rusted where water had been running down there over time.

[RSSinMS]

Yes, very helpful. Looks like what I have. Thanks.

[blw2]

next set are a few I took after removing the corner trim. I was very careful to not destroy the trim in an effort to avoid having to order a replacement form the factory (it was at the time still available and there's no way I believe that I could have bent a straight piece to fit).

So you can see how seriously short the nose skin is. You can see the caulk residue line where up near the top the sealing surface area tapers to basically ZERO (notice teh dark line that was the edge of the trim. The down underneath the bottom edge of the nose skin, more really shotty workmanship in fitting the panels.

I don't care who you are, these sort of joint fits are never going to seal using the standard trims and methods. Pathetic really, IMHO.

I spent a lot of time trying to source trim that was significantly wider to cover this up. Had I been able to find some it would have made this repair much easier.

The last pic here shows the roof membrane area up top, at the very end where the leaks were occurring. Some of this cutting and tearing was done as I got a bit overzealous knifing away the caulk, and some deliberately as I was removing and exploring. My memory is fuzzy on this, but I want to say that the membrane was not completely intact here form teh factory but had been sealed up with caulk.
It was a poor cut when installing the membrane, corrected with self leveling RV miracle cream. Interestingly enough there was almost no rot up here on the roof panel.

A lot of work went into removing all of the caulk residue so that I could get a really good seal in my repair.

[blw2]

next series shows some of the rot damage inside. As I look at the pictures I'm reminded that I ended up cutting away a good sized area and scarfed in a dutchman repair along with my epoxee rebuild. I didn't get any good pictures of any of that.

I also have here a shot of up inside the nose cone. I pulled apart the box built to form along the front edge of the mattress and was able to get up inside to verify what the drawings show about there being very little wood in the structure in most areas. No signs of any water damage, not even from the terrible cab clearance light fixtures that look to be designed to leak.

[blw2]

so after removing as much of the rot as I could, and then treating it and rebuilding it, I used some eternabond double stick in most areas and screwed the corners back together tight. Then sealed everything in with the eternabond webseal.

Followed as best I could eternabond's extensive instructions for different joint applications, found on their web site.

I believe I used some butyl tape or putty tape a bit on top of all of this, when replacing the corner trim on top of the webseal. No pictures and my memory is a bit fuzzy now. A lot of this was very design-as-I-go and situational.

Since I couldn't find wider trim to give this corner some structure, I opted to pay for the rfroof.com. Sadly the owner said he'd never do a corner treatment like that again. Sad because I think it made a good repair, adding structure and a sold seal. Mostly I think because his tool set-up is designed for spraying the roofs, not down low and not on the vertical and under. Sounds like its also hard to spray at those odd angles.

[Tacouser]

First time back on in awhile.
I have an appointment with Thor the first week if February to have the wall looked at. I will post results.