Caulk coming out of seam

[WJC]

I have a 2010 tracer 3000bhs and noticed on the seam in the front on the sides the caulk is coming out, does the trim have to be removed and seams have to be resealed or is this normal? I'm reading more about delamination and don't want to be a victim! I put some pictures on but there not very good! Thanks for any help!

[RV Guy]

"Oozing" putty is normal on newer units. Typically, the putty will start to harden somewhat over time and the "oozing" will stop. We feel extremely confident that there is nothing to do except occassionally scraping it off with a "putty stick" or a plastic putty knife. If you insist on additional peace-of-mind, you can scrape off the excess, clean the sidewall with alcohol, and then use a sealant at the molding edge.

The putty will perform as an effective barrier for many, many years requiring only a visual inspection every 6 months or so.

We do NOT recommend you try to pull off the moldings and apply new putty as part of a preventative maintenance routine.

PTM

[RV Guy]

BTW - a huge majority of manufacturers of laminated RVs only cap seal their exterior moldings. We think the use of putty is a WAY better method of sealing your moldings and it also eliminates the potential for water intrusion at "seal voids" that generally occur over time.

PTM

[grhodes50]

That's one of the reasons I went with PT.

I had a new tt that devloped delam on both sidewalls in less than a year. No signs of bad places in the dicor. I was told it was due to bad glue, but there was evidence of water inside the walls. I'm never did find out where the water made it's entry into the walls. I certainly don't want to go through that again.

Before the delam problem devloped my dealer found a leak in the upper right front corner. Water was getting through a couple of the screws that held the edge moldings in place. There was only a rubber piece covering the screw. No dicor, no putty under the moldings, nothing.

[WJC]

Thanks for the information, I'm trying to stay up on the maintenance of my trailer, the last trailer I had delaminated on the front side. When I removed the trim I found a 1/2 gap between the front and side of my siding at the seam, the trailer was about 4 years old, I contacted the manufacture and question them about the size gap they said that the gap was normal and I should have re caulked the seams and that I didn't maintain the trailer properly, causing the delamination, needless to say this company is out of business!

[RV Guy]

When we first started in 2009 we only cap sealed the seams and puttied the screws. When we went to air test the units during our secondary PDI we consistently found tiny voids in our seals. Many times they were (1) not easily visible to the naked eye or (2) occured after the unit was moved around quite a bit breaking the seal.

We learned thru our PDI testing that complete putty coverage was the best way to seal many of these moldings so we quicky went to a 2" wide piece that completely wraps the corners. We wanted it to "ooze" out both sides of the molding so we could be sure everything under the molding was protected.

As I've said many times on this forum, nothing is PERFECT (and periodic maintenance and inspection is still required), but we think this is better and affords a greater certainty of keeping the water out over time.

BTW, I really like the blow-up smiley face. I didn't know that was on here.

PTM

[WJC]

Thanks for the information RV GUY, your a big help on this forum!
And For more smilies just click on [more] at the bottom of the smilies page and you will find more!