Hi. I recently bought a 1972 Sprite Musketeer. Was all going well and kids love it, but just found damp and rot at the rear, inside and out. There's an exterior side rail (?) under the ply floor, which the aluminium skin is bent around. This is wet and crumbling away - the very corner has completely gone and about 30cm has some crumbling. The chassis is screwed into the ply floor a bit further towards the middle of the van and from what I can see the floor seems ok from the outside - possibly the v corner may be soft. On the inside, the v thin wall board is soft in the same corner and has come away leaving a hole through to the aluminium skin about 15cm wide. The battens I can see in that corner are also rotten -black and crumbling. The floor feels solid, but the wall board has damp stains around 30cm along the side panel and about the same upwards. The rear wall panel is also a bit soft at the bottom. In the other rear corner there is a similar but smaller problem inside, but the outside looks ok, although there may have been a repair in the past to the same side rail.
I have no idea whether this is fixable. I haven't taken the wallboard off to fully explore yet. Have been considering trying to ask the seller to take it back, but bought privately in cash, so not much chance of that!
Really want to get it sorted. The kids (and I) will be heart broken otherwise. Any advice on what to do and whether this sounds fixable would be great. Thanks in advance.
Unless you want to undertake a complete rebuild of caravan the easiest way is to seal up exterior to prevent more water coming in. Stuff to use is PU sealant, brand names are Sikaflex512 & Tigerseal etc, this is sticky & dries flexible. Buy online or from you local caravan or boat shop.
One cartridge £6-£10 should do the whole caravan. Leave it until we get a few days of warm, dry, weather then clean seams with meths & run a bead of sealant along them smoothing with finger. Wear surgical gloves for this.
Thanks Michell. Will get on to that ASAP. My main worry is that if the battens inside are rotten, the back aluminium panel can't be attached very securely. Also not sure how important the side rail under the floor is. Just want it to be safe to tow and dry enough for the little ones to sleep in.
If you want to tow it any distance you also need the running gear serviced to ensure brakes/wheelbearings/hitch/lights are good & if tyres are more than about 6yrs old they should be changed even if tread is good because they may be perished & fail in use.
Thanks Michell. I've found a mobile servicing chap who can do that all for me, despite its age. Hopefully he'll tell me first if the body is about to drop off! He can't fit me in for a couple of weeks though, so will just need to be patient to find out its fate I think...
When I bought my caravan (Dutch Kip Kompakt, 1982) and put it on the drive, it leaked like a sieve. The seller had kept it in a garage, so no damp showing when I bought it. I did remonstrate with the seller, but again here, sold as seen and no recompense.
However - cheer up, there are always ways to fix these things. I hope the mobile chap can give you some idea.
Don't give up hope just yet. My parents had a van for years that was showing signs of damp. They used it for three years before it got bad enough that they had to replace it, and that was doing nothing about it. I actually stuck the front window back in with Sikaflex as it dropped down and unattached itself from the body of the caravan. That made it last another year.
As long as the running gear/lights are ok, and you're not falling through the floor, you can still have a holiday or two in it.
Like Mitchell said, stop the water coming in from the outside first or it will just get worse.
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Topic: Rot and damp
