We purchased our Abbey Spectrum 418 (1998 model) in March, whilst my other half was checking the water system in the bathroom he noticed a suspicious looking silicon sealent around the shower unit and investigated.
He started to peel back the vinyl and discovered that the right hand corner (back) was damp. Further investigation revealed that the spars running along the walls were completely rotted through and the polysterene was grey with damp that seemed to be as far as it went.
Onto the roof which is rotten along one side.
We live in a remote island, no caravan repairers, however hubby is a bit of a jack of all trades but master at come, so we are going to have to tackle this ourselves.
Firstly we need to know where we can get finishing products such as vinyl, seals etc. no chance of getting it here so it needs to be online suppliers. Second do we have to rip out polysterene or can we treat it with pva. Third what kind of ply do we need and where can we get it. The existing ply is about 3mm we reckon. Any help much appreciated.
We are in the process of a complete rebuild of a caravan.
You should be able to get all the items online,if you do a search of this forum there are many suggested shops for different items dependant on what you need, there is also Ebay.
If you are needing wallboards the carriage will be expensive, ours is an old Van so we are using 3mm ply from our local timber yard, it has cost us £4 per sheet for 4' x 8'. In comparison wallboard will cost approx £25 per sheet. Not worth the expense for our old van.
Our polystyrene was in a bad state, but we left it on and it has dried out fine, because we made a bit of a mess of getting it off in places we are lining it with thin (2mm) polystrene from the heating section of the DIY shop, to give the ply a better base to stick to.
Ours was decorated with Vinyl too, but Fablon is quite expensive for a small amount so I will be using a good quality kitchen wallpaper.
Thanks very much for your help, we were going to get wallboard but were told it would be £80-120 per sheet, so thought we would do the same and use ply with good wallpaper. Our biggest problem is our location and the fact that every place seems to wack on between 15-30 surcharge to deliver to remote areas. We are going to replace the ceiling in the shower room and are wondering our to stick that in place? Any suggestions would be great.
We have a dehumidifier running at the moment and will use heat after that to thoroughly dry out. Hubby is a bit daunted by the project but ever willing to save money. A caravan service agent on the mainland said that he didnt think it was feasible to do, but we are going to give it a go. We only bought this van in March and havent even used it yet!!
Hi Rob and Cath and welcome, thought I might be able to point you in the right direction, go to my web site and on the home page at the bottom is a link to Wizards site and from there, there are loads of other links to others who have tackled projects like yours. Loads of information, the damp problems seem less daunting after looking at them.
Reguarding the polystyrene, if its stuck to the aluminium, I would leave it and fill in the gaps with a water based sealer (grip fill or the like) then pva to seal and then when you stick the board on there is a firm base.
thereddragons suggestion of ply and wallpaper is most probably the way to go to keep costs down, hope this helps and good luck, by the way spent a few hours in the "Queens" in Lerwick, great place, cheers,
hi rob and kath, if you can go for the caravan wall boards £15 each at olearys in beverley hull ,i was there yesterday, the have most patterns to match your caravan wall boards, im sure they can deliver via courrier,you can always ask them
Hi Lawrence glad you liked the queens, I used to work in the Grand along the street great place too, if you are ever up here again give me a shout and we will show you some real Shetland hospitality! No finer place in the world.
Thanks everyone for all the help and support the websites have been really useful, and we are confident we can sort this out now thanks to you guys.
Amazing family weekend with old steam engines, classic car displays, market stalls, and full catering and bar. And camping on site - Save £25 by booking in advance.
Topic: Caravan Damp Help please
