I don’t know why, but a large section of my RV floor along the port side (see how comfortable I am with using nautical terms – the result of my many cruises) had become soft over the past year, obviously the result of severe wood rot. It has been bothering me a lot, so this past week I decided to repair it. I knew it would be difficult, but probably not as difficult as my first floor repair which was in the other slide. That was very difficult because the repair had to slide over the central floor. And it was a true patch – I didn’t replace the entire sheet of plywood, so I had to figure out a way to join the patch with the non-rotted wood.
I thought I would have to patch this time too, but I discovered that the main floor has, under the OSB sheathing, some very solid foam insulation. So while I was careful to put the edges of the patches (three separate wood patches) on joists, I didn’t have to figure out how to join the patch with the remaining wood. Much simpler.
But the covering – vinyl planks instead of carpet – turned out to be much more difficult. It took me, I estimate, nearly 3 full days to complete the repair.
The most difficult part of the job was laying the new flooring. One needs to be VERY careful with this stuff. Any damage to the locking channels prevents the pieces from fitting together properly. Even with great care some pieces didn’t fit right. And they didn’t stay put. I had to get some flooring cement to keep them in place. And there were still a couple of joints where I had to use super glue.
The new planking matches the old planking pretty well, but there were some places where I had to be creative in finding ways to make them fit together.
All in all, a successful job. And a floor that no longer feels “squishy.”
But did I figure out how it got wet in the first place? Not entirely. I am pretty sure that the water came in through the seal on the slide and/or the seal on the window next to the slide. But we had several severe thunderstorms while I had the subfloor exposed and I watched very carefully for any water. None. Maybe it was latent damage from one or several hurricanes. I just don’t know.