Bumps through out floor

[Jimenez61]

2019 Thor Freedom Elite 22 FE
Wondering of any one of you have felt bumps through out floor in your class c.

I have a small class c and noticing when I walk bumps through floor. Could it be caused by the heat. Causing this to happen under the flooring?

When I first got it I felt a couple. But now seems like I'm feeling more bumps on tje flooring

[taylorbob1]

Are they air bubbles?
Or
Pieces of debris under the laminate?

I have a little of both

The air bubbles were caused by “lift” at the outer molding
So I have been able to repair so that it’s no longer noticeable

The debris under the laminate (small bits of wood I suppose) are there forever.

[Bob Denman]

Could those bumps be screws that hold down the flooring?
(The vinyl is just laid down over top of them...)

[Jimenez61]

I felt those. These are like wave or bubble type feel.

[Jimenez61]

Feels more like wavy type and or bubble.

[taylorbob1]

I have one noticeable bump
It feels like a rock or piece of wood

BTW, on my rig the vinyl floor covering isn’t glued down
There must be a reason for that
Possibly so it can shrink and expand. Thus, if it’s binding somewhere the bubbles or lift will occur.

[Connieb]

When we first got our Thor chateau there seemed to be a soft spot in the middle of the floor. It was brought to the attention of the dealer. They contacted Thor. I was told it is fine, operates as designed. I am sure it is not right, but ....I will have to have it looked at and it will be at my expense. Right now I live with it.

[witthuus]

Originally Posted by Connieb

When we first got our Thor chateau there seemed to be a soft spot in the middle of the floor. It was brought to the attention of the dealer. They contacted Thor. I was told it is fine, operates as designed. I am sure it is not right, but ....I will have to have it looked at and it will be at my expense. Right now I live with it.

I have quite a few bubbles and am not willing to accept this as given. I had General RV look into it and they "repaired" it - making it even worse. They replaced 2 tiles in a different color than the original. I have about 10 bubbles left.

I asked the entire floor to be replaced and General RV said that would be impossible to do. Let's see what Entegra says. It is a brand new RV and I think several bubbles plus replaced tiles in a different color is just not acceptable

[chunker21]

May be obvious to some and not so to others. If you know anything about RVs the floor surface, sheet vinyl, carpet, etc., is the first thing that goes on the floor. Any walls, appliances, cabinets, everything goes on top of that flooring. Replacing the flooring means taking it all apart again which is not something any RV manufacturer is going to do. Well maybe a 2.5 million $$ Marathon but likely they take the time to build it correctly. Bottom line the time to identify and point out these defects is BEFORE buying and paying. After that it's your issue your problem. Small bubbles might be fixed by pricking the bubble, injecting some adhesive, and rolling it down, but screws, debris under the flooring is another sign of a poorly built RV that you bought. Next time look at one more carefully and don't accept crap.

[witthuus]

Originally Posted by chunker21

May be obvious to some and not so to others. If you know anything about RVs the floor surface, sheet vinyl, carpet, etc., is the first thing that goes on the floor. Any walls, appliances, cabinets, everything goes on top of that flooring. Replacing the flooring means taking it all apart again which is not something any RV manufacturer is going to do. Well maybe a 2.5 million $$ Marathon but likely they take the time to build it correctly. Bottom line the time to identify and point out these defects is BEFORE buying and paying. After that it's your issue your problem. Small bubbles might be fixed by pricking the bubble, injecting some adhesive, and rolling it down, but screws, debris under the flooring is another sign of a poorly built RV that you bought. Next time look at one more carefully and don't accept crap.

People do renovate RV's and replace flooring with new vinyl - I don't think they take the entire RV apart

[Chateau_Nomad]

Originally Posted by Connieb

When we first got our Thor chateau there seemed to be a soft spot in the middle of the floor. It was brought to the attention of the dealer. They contacted Thor. I was told it is fine, operates as designed. I am sure it is not right, but ....I will have to have it looked at and it will be at my expense. Right now I live with it.

We have a 2020 Thor Chateau 24F bought new in fall of 2019. I first noticed the viny wasn't glued down after about 3 months, when a large "bubble" or wavy area became obvious near the dinette. I took it back to the dealership... was told they aren't glued - except for the edges - to allow for expansion/shrinkage in drastic temperature changes a motorhome experiences. That supposedly was Thor's response.

My thoughts? It comes and goes with change of temperature. At first it tugged at my OCD strings, and it looked somewhat "hillbilly" in a brand new motorhome. But I've learned to live with it... because the fix might screw it up even worse. 😳😡

[pneumatics]

Item to check is the placement of the muffler and CAT converter under the floor. 1st couple of trips noticed some wrinkles starting up right over the area of the CAT converter (the muffler is in the middle and back further) and felt the floor was warm. Very warm on a hot day but could still put my whole hand on it.

Most flooring is vinyl and it stretches and contracts as noted. But vinyl also has an expansion life to it, the more it stretches and expands when it cools it does not return to it's original shape by a very small amount. Do this many times over hot and cold cycles and.... bubbles, ripples, bumps, etc. This is why it is not glued down 100%.

You don't see this in your home as your house is not at freezing and then to 100F over the course of a year, at least you don't want it to.

As soon as I could I installed the heat reflective 1" under hood insulation right over the area of the converter on the underside. Helps a lot with the heat on the floor in this area. I also did some around the engine area, areas where the exhaust pipes are and the manifolds.

Still see a small amount in that area and some could be assembly dirt also.

[Ferf]

In the first year we owned our 2019 Thor Ace 30.2 we had bumps in the floor. They got bad over time and eventually we found out it was screws pushing through the laminate.

I ended up cutting small holes in the laminate and dabbing glue on the screw before screwing them back in. Was only in 2-3 places, and strange.

[JimC]

I have a 2020 Thor Daybreak 22GO. It is almost the same camper as your Freedom Elite 22 FE. So far, I have had no floor problems. I have an area straight forward from the entry that when you are standing outside in the doorway, looks wavy. However, when I checked it with a straightedge, it is level and even. It was just an optical illusion due to the pattern in the tile .

If I had the bubbles you allude to, I think I would just sand down the existing tile and install a laminate material from Lowes/HD/Minards/etc.
JimC.

[Chateau_Nomad]

Originally Posted by pneumatics

Item to check is the placement of the muffler and CAT converter under the floor. 1st couple of trips noticed some wrinkles starting up right over the area of the CAT converter (the muffler is in the middle and back further) and felt the floor was warm. Very warm on a hot day but could still put my whole hand on it.

Most flooring is vinyl and it stretches and contracts as noted. But vinyl also has an expansion life to it, the more it stretches and expands when it cools it does not return to it's original shape by a very small amount. Do this many times over hot and cold cycles and.... bubbles, ripples, bumps, etc. This is why it is not glued down 100%.

You don't see this in your home as your house is not at freezing and then to 100F over the course of a year, at least you don't want it to.

As soon as I could I installed the heat reflective 1" under hood insulation right over the area of the converter on the underside. Helps a lot with the heat on the floor in this area. I also did some around the engine area, areas where the exhaust pipes are and the manifolds.

Still see a small amount in that area and some could be assembly dirt also.

Looks like Thor (or Ford?) installed aluminum panels between the frame rails about midway back in ours. I was installing a propane quick connect last week on the passenger side. The propane tank is driver side. They routed propane hoses and some wiring above that panel... which must act as a heat shield from the exhaust.

Your comment about exhaust heat has me curious now - that could very well be a strong contributor to distorted "hillbilly" vinyl.

[45 year RVr]

I had a Jayco class C a couple of years ago. It developed bumps in the floor that turned out to be bolts that held the floor down backing out. Jayco (a Thor company) paid to have the floor replaced. They removed the slides and the lower kitchen cabinets. In areas that they didn't remove they placed quarter round around the edges to trim it out.

[LickinFlames]

Originally Posted by chunker21

May be obvious to some and not so to others. If you know anything about RVs the floor surface, sheet vinyl, carpet, etc., is the first thing that goes on the floor. Any walls, appliances, cabinets, everything goes on top of that flooring. Replacing the flooring means taking it all apart again which is not something any RV manufacturer is going to do. Well maybe a 2.5 million $$ Marathon but likely they take the time to build it correctly. Bottom line the time to identify and point out these defects is BEFORE buying and paying. After that it's your issue your problem. Small bubbles might be fixed by pricking the bubble, injecting some adhesive, and rolling it down, but screws, debris under the flooring is another sign of a poorly built RV that you bought. Next time look at one more carefully and don't accept crap.

Sometimes these sorts of things are "revealed" after the inspection...in our case, the floating floor (it's like a waterbed almost) appeared three weeks after the delivery, 5 days into a trip and four states away from the dealer. Everyone I'm talking too is a bit nervous because of the cost of any possible repair (an unlikely event). But I wouldn't assume that the owner didn't inspect the rig carefully nor that they purchased crap. I'm not sure I would refer to our new OMNI XG32 as such, but we do have two massive bubbles totally about 6 sq feet and rising about 1/2-3/4 inches...worse when the heater goes on. Back to the dealer in two months for a look-see.

[chunker21]

Originally Posted by LickinFlames

Sometimes these sorts of things are "revealed" after the inspection...in our case, the floating floor (it's like a waterbed almost) appeared three weeks after the delivery, 5 days into a trip and four states away from the dealer. Everyone I'm talking too is a bit nervous because of the cost of any possible repair (an unlikely event). But I wouldn't assume that the owner didn't inspect the rig carefully nor that they purchased crap. I'm not sure I would refer to our new OMNI XG32 as such, but we do have two massive bubbles totally about 6 sq feet and rising about 1/2-3/4 inches...worse when the heater goes on. Back to the dealer in two months for a look-see.

I had an XG32 and it was crap. Gone now though. But I digress. Your issue could be that the sheet vinyl isn't secured to the floor at the floor registers allowing any air being pushed through to get under the vinyl and balloon it. My suggestion, remove the registers and get some aluminum foil tape that's used in HVAC ducting. Tape down all along the edges of the flooring to the plywood/OSB. If you don't then all the construction debris in the sub floor will blow under your sheet vinyl and be permanent bumps. Just so you know, there is no real dedicated heat ducting. thor just uses parts of the sub floor cavities for the heated air. That's why the bedroom floor is warmed and any air that makes it to your front register is cold. IF any makes it that far.

After I taped the edges I put my shop vac over the registers making a a baffle out of cardboard so the suction was moist efficient. I got tons of sawdust and crap out. I did all registers and blocked over the others while cleaning. Be prepared to be disgusted. Or take the ignorance is bliss approach.

[Chateau_Nomad]

Our floor issue was not noticable when we did our inspection. It presented several weeks after we took delivery - likely from expansion/contraction with temperature changes. If it had been visible on the dealer lot, we would have addressed it then... before signing.

BUT... there's an upside:
In just two years our 2020 MH (exact same floorplan) price has inflated 25%... which is ridiculous. The added insult to today's buyers is now only receiving a 15% -18% discount off retail... when just two years ago 30% was very common. Which means our 2020 (with my included upgrades) is selling USED for more than the original MSRP!!

So... whenever I have to "fix" something, I smile to myself and marvel about my "investment" motorhome...

[chunker21]

Originally Posted by Chateau_Nomad

Our floor issue was not noticable when we did our inspection. It presented several weeks after we took delivery - likely from expansion/contraction with temperature changes. If it had been visible on the dealer lot, we would have addressed it then... before signing.

BUT... there's an upside:
In just two years our 2020 MH (exact same floorplan) price has inflated 25%... which is ridiculous. The added insult to today's buyers is now only receiving a 15% -18% discount off retail... when just two years ago 30% was very common. Which means our 2020 (with my included upgrades) is selling USED for more than the original MSRP!!

So... whenever I have to "fix" something, I smile to myself and marvel about my "investment" motorhome...

It has been a crazy market but when the recession hits the bottom will fall out of pricing. I suggest that if someone is thinking of selling, do so sooner than later. When the fall starts it will be precipitous and violent. Trying to time the market is usually a loser. It's already softened some. Just my opinion based on some research.