floor repair due to rear leak in 2018 320S

ktsame

Anyone have their floor repaired after a rear leak?  If so, how is the repair performed?  I have staining and some soft wood on each side of the trailer - the drivers side is worse than the passenger side.  I assume it is from a taillight leak or a leak at the wheel well.

Sharon_is_SAM

https://tab-rv.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/8446/leak

Denny16

First, you need to fix the leak, then you need to dry the wet areas out, adding a fan or small fan/heater will speed things up.  After it is dry, the softness feel should should go away, and yiu are left with the stain.  You could treat the wood panels with a penetrating two-part epoxy which will stabilize them, then use a stain covering Kills primer and paint the stained panels, they are cosmetic panels, covering the Azdel panels period them, not structural parts.  

If you want to retain the natural Birch ply look, you could try using a good wood bleach to remove the stain, but if it has turned black or dark brown, you are not going to get it completely out.  Next would be to replace the birch plywood cover panels, which will require taking the back bench out and unscrewing the panels you want to replace, (not sure if they are screwed or glued in), a fall to nüCamp Service might be a good idea also, for their recommendation.
cheers

ktsame

Thanks Sharon and Denny, I appreciate your input.  I was more interested in anyone who had a dealer or NuCamp actually repair the rear end water damage and what the repair involved.

dragonsdofly

@ktsame, is your floor actually damaged? We had the taillights leak the first winter we owned our t@b. We have the worst looking trailer water stains from this type of leak that anyone has actually posted. If it is from a leak in the back of the trailer, the wood you see is merely cosmetic. You can remove it and be done with that wood, or cut your own replacement using the piece you remove as a pattern. It is ¼" luan plywood. 

Once we had the leaks repaired, and the wood dried, we simply left it in place. Your 2018 has no wood in the walls, floor or roof front to back. There are only wooden cabinets, window soffits/facia and the cosmetic piece in the back under the taillights. If you are referring to the angled cosmetic piece, anyone who can cut plywood can make a replacement piece for appearance sake. Is this what you are referring to? My pics look like this:



Driver's side


Passenger side.

This is located under the back lower cabinets, behind the sofa bench.

I realize you have a clamshell, and your behind the sofa piece may be vertical, and more a part of the cabinet area. If so, you may need someone more skilled in wood replacement or repair. I am not able to assist with that, but I was hoping you don't actually have a soft floor or other complications.

P.S. nüCamp performed the taillight leak repair. They did not deem it necessary to replace the stained area as it is still solid, and we didn't ask or demand anything else be done. This was a warranty repair performed at üCamp17. And my taillights have never leaked again. Good luck. -Denise

ktsame

Thanks dragonsdofly.  Your pics didn't come through  but this is what ours looks like.  Not so bad really but might be a problem for resale. 

dragonsdofly

@ktsame, your damage or stain area appears much smaller and less obvious than ours. If you get the leak repair done, keep the receipt.  In many cases, if you can prove a completed repair, resale is not so much a problem.

That will be true especially if the stains are in a covered area and are not structural in any way, and fortunately, for both of us, they are not. Again, good luck with this. Btw, I can see my photos as well as yours and I am on a mobile device. Hope you at least get a peek at mine.

ktsame

I did see your pics.  I wasn’t patient enough to let them load;). Thanks for your input.

Denny16

That is mostly a cosmetic stain damage to the top layer of ply covering.  Best repair, is to dry is out, seal it and paint it over.  Stain is now gone.  The visible plywood panels are Birch ply, not Luan, which is a softwood Asian plywood used primarily as an underlayment.  All the visible wood in a TaB is Birch hardwood type ply, which is a better quality than the Luan (which is not a generic word for plywood, but is a specify type of plywood).
cheers

ktsame

I have an update on the floor damage from my T@B 320S taillight leak.  I took the trailer to Millers Trailer Sales in Perkasie Pa.  They did a "butt" repair and it is good as new.  They were able to do the work under warranty because the taillight leak is a known problem in the 2018 T@Bs.  I am very pleased with the quality of their work:) While the trailer was in their shop, they performed some routine maintenance as well.  Miller's gets a five star review from me.

Denny16

Good, glad you got it sorted properly.  
Cheers 

Rolo

I'm reviving this thread, since I just discovered some water damage in the same area that everyone else described, in our 2018 320s. BUT I discovered something shocking that I haven't see in this thread yet. I urge you to see if your trailer has the same problem!

So, Our trailer is not currently garaged or under a roof, however it is covered with one of those "Classic Accessories" covers... apparently this wasn't enough to handle the snow and torrential rains we recently received here in Mendocino County, CA. I couldn't figure out where the water was coming from, but it seemed like it was occurring along a seam where the vinyl flooring ends and the curve of the trailer butt starts. So I decided to go outside and crawl under the trailer, to see if I could find any points where water could have entered that area.

What I found was that the black plastic canvas material (which I suppose nucamp installed to protect the rig from bugs and splashing water from driving in the rain) has essentially become a rain water catchment pocket! I made a small incision in the material and sure enough, copious amounts of water poured out!!! I don't know if it's getting in from the brake lights or just slowly dripping in from a different point, but regardless, the water is just sitting in there, doing more damage as time goes by.

So even if I clean, seal / paint the rotted wood, there's still a water pocket under there doing damage! Now I need to find and mitigate the water entry point, and fix the black canvas material I sliced open... anyone else have experience with this??

PS: My advice for others is to feel / press on this area under your trailer to see if you have water pockets too!

BrianZ

@Rolo, sorry to see you have this issue, and while I don't have any specific advice, I can share some factory photos posted by others that may help understand the floor structure in this corner area..

There are wood beams inside that plastic wrap, which joins that angled back wall to the floor..

So, yes, there is wood behind the plastic, only at the front & rear ends of the floor.

I may be a bit disoriented, but it looks like where you made the slit to drain water is on the floor side of that joint, forward of the wood beam?  Based on that, it seems more likely that the water may have come from a leaky wheel well seam.  On the other hand, that angled wood back is water stained, which seems to be more indicative of a taillight leak.  My recent glycol leak onto that angled board ended up draining right through the seam rather quickly after I added more, though I'm now wondering if there may still be some residual glycol inside of the floor.
I think I will try tilting our trailer nose-up and see if anything more drains from that rear seam.  I don't want to cut that water barrier just to see if there is anything inside.
Let us know what you find at your wheel well caulking joints or taillights.

grassgd

I recently delt with this same issue on my trailer and found the source of the leak not the taillights but actually the seam between the roof and the rear plastic cap which has the taillights.  Here is the picture of the problem once I removed the aluminum strip covering this joint:



Apparently, the factory did not properly seal this seam and the basic design facilitates water entering the trailer.  The roof should have overlapped the plastic tail section to prevent water entering.

ChristineHart

I am currently having the same problem.  @Denny16, or anyone else, how do you dry it out?  I have water that saturated the foam insulation under the birch wood under my bench.  It is starting to make the wood soft close to the Alde now.  I need to get this area dried out before it gets worse!

ktsame

It's difficult to get this area dry.  Have you been able to stop the leak?  Not sure where you live but I took my trailer to Miller's Trailer in Pa.  They were able to repair the floor and seal it properly.  Miller's doesn't sell trailers anymore but they do still repair them.