Trying not to be super bummed...

[DouglasReid]

Two thoughts,

First you have to find the leak and insure no more water enters.

Second, you have to remove, destroy or isolate the mold. My suggestion to isolate, and kill the mold is Minwax Wood Hardener.

It will not only penetrate the material where the mold and encapsulate the mold, killing it, It will strengthen the flooring at the same time. Just pour it on the area and let it soak in til it wont' absorb any more.

You can use kids modeling clay (you can find it at the dollar store) to form a dam to keep it from going all over the undamaged part of the flooring material.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Minwax-Wood...ler/1000447109

[HK3]

Really appreciate everyone’s inputs. Didn’t think I’d get this great a response. Thank you. I settled with the guy and he’s going to give me back $500...was the best I could do with him. Now to figure out where the leak is coming from and whether I need to tear part or all of it out. I have a concern about the density of the wood on that outer edge because when the slide rolls back into the frame of the trailer body, i believe it rests on these plastic slide rollers, and from looking underneath at the edge of the slider it would appear that some deterioration is happening there in that area, I’m wondering if it’s from resting on those slides and the wood being compromised. Pic of what I’m talking about is below. I’m going to clear out the area this weekend from the inside to make sure I can see it all, and the extent of the damage. Do the leak test and then probably ask for more help/guidance. Thanks all!

[HK3]

So...I think I found a key leakage point. The bulb seal is not sealing at the bottom of the slide when it comes into the body of the trailer. Again I feel like an idiot for not seeing this before I bought it, but it’s like the entire slide framing is just a off-kilter and the bottom right edge is pulling away from the body of the trailer. It can clearly be seen in these pictures. The result is that the slider isn’t flush with the body of the trailer all the way across the bottom of the slider, and the bulb seal on the bottom edge isn’t blocking water from the road or the wheels as the trailer goes down the road. It seems to be flush top to bottom from the leading vertical edge, but then on the trailing vertical edge it’s cocked out with the bottom right askew from the body of the trailer. I wonder if the guy backed it up with the slider out or something and somehow twisted the frame of the slider and cocked it like this. I’m kind of scared to know what it will take to fix this...any ideas?

[HK3]

As soon as I posted that last post about the back bottom corner being out of kilter I put the slider all the way out and it’s actually the front/leading side of the slider body that shows the most deterioration underneath. I can see where the slider rollers are essentially digging into the softened wood when the slider is pulled all the way into the body of the trailer. And most all of that deterioration is on the front end...guess I need to pull out the jackknife sofa to see how bad the floor looks on the front end of the slider. From underneath, the wood flooring feels solid till I get to the outer edges.

[billybigrigger]

So a couple things here, it appears you have a Schwintek slide system made by Lippert. I suggest you visit the Lippert website and download the manuals. They will describe the procedure for timing the slide. The timing procedure only times the slide side to side and not top and bottom rails. Sometime the manufacture will install the rails incorrectly and this causes the system to jump teeth. This can also cause the top and bottom to be out of alignment. I would perform the Schwintek retiming procedure and reevaluate seal contact. If still not contacting well, I would measure the rails for parallelism as stated in the manual. These measurements will tell you if it was installed wrong. If installed wrong, the only way to fix is to remove the system, ensure the rails are correct length and not damaged, retime the system on a bench and then reinstall. As for the damage to the floor, you can do the ice pick check to see how bad/far the possible rot is. The only options are to replace the floor or apply wood restore hardener to try and get a few more years out of it. I would also repair the torn moisture barrier under the floor. I have used a scrim shield tape from AP Products that seems to work well. Just make sure the surface is clean and dry before application. Don’t hesitate to contact Lippert tech support for slide out system questions, they have always been helpful when I reached out to them!

[HK3]

Thank you BillyBigRigger, appreciate the insights. I did the retiming per the YouTube videos and the system tightened up to where both side were pushing up against the bulb seal on the vertical leading and trailing edges of the slide. I had a friend come over and with an impact drill we got the bottom right corner to pull in actually, to where that big gap was closed...however I had him watch it as I pulled the slide back in, and it separated once again on the way back in...I had him video it for me...what I saw from the inside as I was holding down the retract button was that the slide was having a hard time pulling back in, like it was pulling at a downward angle, and struggling to not catch on the floor...in fact, the carpeted strip on the face of the bottom of my dinette is partially buckled under from the leaning of the slide as it comes in to the body of the trailer. Its just kind of a tilted, top heavy leaning in as the slide comes in. I am going to be ripping everything out to get to the flooring so I’ll see how it’s designed, but I don’t believe there are rollers under there of any shape or form...which I don’t understand. It’s like it just drags along the floor. So more to come on that. Again, appreciate the input.

[KaptnKirk]

Sorry for your troubles. Had a similar problem with an earlier trailer. This looks like it is in the slide area near the outside wall. In my case, I ultimately found a couple areas on the slide roof area that were allowing water to travel down inside the wall and into the area under the dinette. Rained really hard for a couple a days with the slide out or I would not have noticed it. Sealed up the seam on the slide roof and the water stopped.

[Dakota 1120]

Originally Posted by rsdata

use Mold Armor from Home Depot to rid the musty smell and black stains... then run the AC unit , a fan into the recesses, and/or a dehumidifier and make sure everything is dry...

That stuff works GREAT to clean the underside of an awning!!!

[dallasrules]

This is pretty typical damage. The water runs down the slide and then under and is sucked up by the particle board. Slide awnings help prevent this, or more simply just some metal flashing.

If it is just surface mold and the wood is not rotted through, clean it up with a mold killer and put some wood hardener on it.

If the rot does go all the way through, you can replace the wood on the slide. We replace both ends of our 12' slide, but it seems it would have been just as easy to replace the whole thing. There are some great videos and its not as daunting as it seems.

Our bedroom slide was the same, but being a different construction and not as structural, we cut out the bad and then just covered it up with new wood. One piece of $4 flashing did all 3 slides to prevent future damage.

[Bhrava]

Originally Posted by PenJoe

You might try scratching the surface to see how deep that mold is. The floors are OSB (oriented strand board) so it does not swell or disintegrate like fiberboard. If it is surface mold, concentrated bleach will kill it. If that works, KILZ will seal it. But, you still need to determine the leak source.

This was going to be my suggestion as well. We had issues with our floors, not mold, but dog urine. Previous owners took in strays that we were unaware of, found out later from the LP gas guy. Anyway, they had carpeting put in the entire house, and when we started cleaning them they started to smell. Ripped it all out and used 3 coats of Kilz on the entire subfloor. No more odors. Make sure the wood is dry and then seal it good with a few coats of KILZ. You can mix mildew inhibitor in with the KILZ too that will prevent further growth.

Edit: I see you found the source. Good luck with the repairs.

[HK3]

Originally Posted by dallasrules

One piece of $4 flashing did all 3 slides to prevent future damage.

Thanks for that. Would you happen to have pics of what you did with the flashing? I took the sofa area apart tonight. More mold. Wood is too soft to harden. Needs some form of replacement, partial or whole.

[Oafdawg]

This is the very best stuff you can use to destroy mold. https://www.concrobium.com/

[dallasrules]

I will try to get a picture, but we bought 2" x 12' flashing from Lowes for $4.60. There was a strip a couple of inches from the bottom of the slide. We removed the strip, put the flashing inside the sidewall, then it wraps under the bottom edge of the trailer. Then we reattached the strip and sealed it.

In addition, when I replaces the wood, I sealed it with a deck/marine sealant.

You could feel under the edge of the slide that the wood sticks down at least 1/4", and is just covered in the wrap material. My trailer is a 2004, so that material was degraded quite a bit, but I have my doubts that it was ever meant to be waterproof.

[DavidWJ]

Is the damage on the floor of a slide out? If so, that makes the repair much easier, remove the floor and replace it with marine plywood covered in spar varnish. A lot of work, but not too difficult.

[Beachfrog]

Concerning the leak. I would re-caulk the trim around the top of the window. i do not recommend using silicone caulk for this.

[Bronco Carl]

As mentioned before Clorox solution, let dry completely and then use the Kilz primer. Use the oil based primer, this stuff has nasty fumes so open all the windows. The smell goes away after drying. If anyone is sensitive or you can still smell it topcoat with latex paint.

[Bhrava]

Kilz sure took away the aroma of dog pee when I used it. Works quite well.

Be careful how you install the flashing, where you install it and what kind of flashing. You should never need flashing on the length of the slide under the floor. When the slide is working properly it will never see water. The rubber bulb on the main wall under the slide should seal and prevent any water from getting up there.

The only place flashing is needed are on the side walls for when the slide is out, and the flashing should never be flush with the floor. If it is water will contact the wood instead of dripping off.

You want flashing to be away from the floor at least 3/16" and the flashing to have a slight bow to it. This way water will have a place to pool and form into drops. If the surface is flat, the water can actually ride all the way across the flashing and into the wood. Improperly installed flashing causes more harm than good. I have seen water go up flashing instead of falling off, fairly interesting dynamic.

Here is what the flashing looks like on my Arctic wolf. You really can't tell in the picture, but the part has a slight bow to it and is thick enough that water wont ride up the inside and contact the floor.


From what I see with the OP's slide, looks like it wasn't seating fully on the bottom and driving in rain got water splashed up into the slide and damaged the floor. If that is the case, and probably is, it would be a good idea to check the floor under the slide as well because if the slide got wet, so did the floor under it.

There really is no other way the entire floor got wet like that, or the wall itself would have a lot of damage as well.

[Bronco Carl]

Anything that has sealing from outside weather such as flashing, windows, doors I have used the sealing membrane used on houses. The brand I used lately was Protecto-wrap. That stuff bonds to things like crazy and its available in different widths. As many of us know RV's are not perfect. Wrap the stuff around from inside to outside and use a roller to form it down, once down don't try to remove it. I also own a 25 foot express cruiser boat and if you go online to suppliers such as Jamestown Distributors you can buy marine caulking such as 3M 4200 and 5200. If you use the 5200 trying to remove it ten years from now will be extremely difficult. Silicone is basically useless.

[HK3]

Originally Posted by Beachfrog

Concerning the leak. I would re-caulk the trim around the top of the window. i do not recommend using silicone caulk for this.

Which type of caulk do you recommend? And should I clean out the old caulk before recaulking or caulk over the old stuff?

Thanks!

[HK3]

Originally Posted by Bronco Carl

Distributors you can buy marine caulking such as 3M 4200 and 5200. If you use the 5200 trying to remove it ten years from now will be extremely difficult. Silicone is basically useless.

Cool, yes, I have used the 5200 on the cracks around my pool. Good stuff. Would you suggest that for the window caulking or something else?