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The_Breeze · 05-14-2020, 10:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judge

I’ve learned to reinforce the shower pan as one of the first mods in a new coach. The wife will step around the pan and then I will both looking for soft spots. Then I start cutting blocks of wood to add support.

They could do such a better job building the supports for the shower pan..... if they weren’t in such a hurry to get the coach built.

Thanks Judge. We three agree: you, MCR and I and I went in that direction. It was the root cause of the whole inconvenience.

I had enough 1x on hand to straddle the end points of the wheel well where it's more sturdy and provides better support. The third 2x4, closest to the hallway, wasn't cutaway to replicate it a third time. More 1x next time I'm near a Lowe's. I would have liked to go a little wider than 1x but in the middle of BFE with no lumber store in 100mi. What's a guy gonna do?

The middle seems to belly and any additional stress there could have resulted in breakage, leaving a place for water to intrude if driving in the rain. so I sought to straddle the end-points where the wheel well is more sturdy. I followed with filler to add strength but most of the weight should be carried by the 1x and end-points. You have to look at where the original shower pan 2x4's meet the 1x and how far it is to the end-point to hope for strength. It should provide enough to not have to rely on the middle so much but I wanted to use the available surface area to add strength. I have to wait for the shower to dry so I can caulk the corner where the crack occurred. It's a bit of a hassle because it's actually behind the shower wall panel so you have to pry the panel away from pan to get caulk where the problem is.

Here's what I did to support the shower pan. I had to leave room for the duct work that feeds the bedroom (4" flex). On the upside, I can tailor the 45' of flex they used to heat the bedroom. All that excess surface area to get cold and decrease heat efficiency. Gotta love it.

All in all, it could have been worse so I'm not that peeved about it. You're right though, they could have done a much better job reinforcing the pan.