Hi, We have just washed our caravan and water has leaked in, presumably from the rooflight. This also happened last time we washed it, but it has leaked during heavy rain, snow etc. Has anyone else had this problem? Any ideas how to resolve? Thank you
it might be caused by the sheer pressure from your hose. to be on the same side, get some sealant and give it a once over just to be on the safe side and also check around your van in case its also gone into the roof lining.
You need to find exactly where the water is coming in. If it is just around the seal of the opening section of rooflight then cleaning with silicone spray may do the job. If elsewhere it needs fixing asap before water gets into structure of 'van.
I had this problem when a brand new van leaked the first weekend we had it out. When I removed the rooflight top section I found two problems.
1;- The sealant bead had a 1/4" gap where rainwater was coming through.
2;- The height of the sealant bead was not high enough to reach the bottom of the skylight and so whenever the wind was blowing, even had there not been a gap in the sealant, the wind would have blown the rain over the top of the sealant bead.
I removed all the sealant (mastic strip) cleaned the area and then painted both the caravan roof and the recess strip on the rooklight with Sikaflex Primer.
I then put a thick bead of Sikaflex into the recess groove on th rooflight, making sure that there was enough Sikaflex standing proud of the resess to ensure a good bond with the caravan roof once the upper and lower rooflight bits were screwed together.
The only way that rooflight will ever come off again is with a razor blade and it is guaranteed never to leak again.
It is advisable that when you are using Sikaflex to join two surfaces that are different materials, that you use a Sikaflex Primer. In my case it was the Perspex Rooflighter to the Glassfibre Caravan Roof.
The damp test metre? Had it a while now, I got it from an online tool dealer, can't remember which one, but if you google rapidtest you'll see where to get one, they are around £20. It does the job, I find the probes are much easier to use than the ones where they are attached to the front as you can see the readings.
Hi Lawrence, No, not a Damp Test Meter. It is the Hydro Volt Meter that you have a pic of when testing the charge on the individual cells of your leisure battery.
Looks like a handy bit of kit and as I have both a FC and several older Classic Cars, I could do with a decent battery cell tester.
Quote: Originally posted by LawrenceR on 19/2/2011
Lobey, it's a good job Michael knows his way around my site!
Michael, feel free to point anyone to the bits on my site...that's why I did it,
Happy caravanning,
thank Lawrence you we could not operate this site without people as yourself producing good reference pictures and instructions.plus the other fixit guys too.
------------- the only silly question is the one you do not ask.
Oh, that Hydro metre, now theres a question? Its that far back I can't remember for checking the elctrolyte, must have had it over twenty years.
Sorry I can't be of more help.
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