Renovating my ?03 Nomad TT

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1anjl

Active member
Joined
Sep 7, 2018
Posts
35
Location
Western Washington State
Hello all. I am hopefully at the tail end of renovating a 2003 Nomad by Skyline. It is 25 ft travel trailer. The first pics will look BAD but it does get better :)
I purchased the TT from a used car dealer not knowing at the time this particular dealer knew nothing about RVs lol. I decided to purchase this trailer because the flooring was already ripped up (partially) which would save this old lady some work...but also I thought I could see all of the water damage I would be dealing with. I did check the walls etc and they seemed fine. The dealer offered to deliver it for me (2 hr drive) and even offered to patch the 2 soft spots/holes in the floor (again saving me some hard work).
2 days later the USED CAR dealer delivered trailer and this is how he patched the floors: he filled the gaping hole with brown paper bags folded up. Then put a layer of duct tape over it all. Then put about 1:4 to 1/2 inch of focal over that. The fixall was still wet and by the time he towed it 2 hrs to my house...most of it had cracked and crumbled away. At the time, I thought he just put an over abundance of fixall on top of the wood he replaced. Apparently he thought you could fix a TT floor the same way you would with a wall. Here are the pics of the trailer when it arrived.
 

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I should add: I purchased this trailer to live in full time. My sister, brother and I decided we were sick of paying rent. Sis owns 14 acres and has a house that is being built on it. So we purchased 3 trailers and moved to the land. We had to wait for electrician and well guy to do some work before we had electricity and water. My TT will be a permanent tiny home at her property. Bro and sis will eventually move into the house when it?s complete.
My TT has a sofa slide. Just the butt of the sofa slides out a few feet to give more floor space. I was nervous about buying one with a slide and asked the dealer to demonstrate how it worked. He said trailer was parked too far from electricity but he guaranteed that it worked. Even added it to the contract along with a statement that he would fix holes in the floor. Sighs. Slide out does not work, and there was some water damage along the side which I didn?t see because he didn?t extend the slide. We were able to manually open the slide after much research on how to. I have since framed in a box under the slide because again this will be a permanent fixture on the land. It won?t be travelled in. (I will be buying a class c to renovate and travel in full time)
This TT also had some interior damage. The spare tire was left inside while traveling and it knocked out the 2 bathroom walls, the drawers to the closet and the closet door. I originally planned to replace those walls but have since decided to leave it open. So the bathroom and bedroom will be like a master suite. It?s just me and my dog and cat in there and they never give me any privacy anyhow! Lol
Here are some pics of what I?ve done so far. I will hopefully finish up the backsplash tonight and start putting down new flooring tomorrow
 

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Sounds familiar. I set up one of my old TTs on my sister's small farm for her son and grandkids to live in till things "improved". So, don't get discouraged at the amount of work, one step at a time, make it look like you want, etc.
Others may say "Nay nay".. too much work and expense... just do your thing.

Good luck. You'll find this forum has plenty of advice and is a great source of information.
 
Sounds like that used car dealer was one of those "you can tell he's lying if his lips are moving" types.  How did you replace those rotted floor joists?  We're looking for a small travel trailer, 16 foot or so, that we can remodel to fit our needs and be able to hit the road at a moment's notice.  Remodeling is fun, but it gets old fast.

There are a lot of people here who have done amazing remodels, so don't panic or stress when you run up against a problem.  Just take a break from it and talk about it here or look for youtube videos on how to do something.

BTW, most slides have a hand crank option.
 
On the flooring I just cut out the bad wood back to a solid 2x3 in the framing. Cut out all the rotted framing boards and sistered in new framing and replaced the rotted subflooring. There were really only 3 soft spots: one under the sofa in the corner, one in front of the back door and one on side of the bed. The one under couch slide was difficult because of the tiny space I had to work with. The one in front of back door rotted subfloor and part of the framing along the outside wall. I got a bit scared with that one, but was able to pull out the rotted wood (it was literally crumbling in my hands) and cut the framing from the outside under the rug and replace it that way. The difficult part was getting the sub floor back in under the sagging wall. I borrowed a friends jack to jack up the wall so that I could pound it into place. I?m not as young as I once was lol but was glad once all subfloor was finally down and secure. The floor is really solid now lol. I will start doing the flooring hopefully today.

 
It sound like you know exactly what to do. What was your background?
I hope you got rid of any mold under the floor.
Have you gone on the roof yet and check for cracks in the caulking?
 
Rene T said:
It sound like you know exactly what to do. What was your background?
I hope you got rid of any mold under the floor.
Have you gone on the roof yet and check for cracks in the caulking?
I was an insurance agent for 22 yrs then ran my own handywoman company for 7 years before disabilities forced me into retirement. My mind still says `you got this` but my body protests every single step of the way :)
I do have some pretty vast experience in mold mitigation, and was a bit freaked when I saw all the damaged wood most was dry and crumbly. The one wet area was only slightly damp from a recent rain. That leak has been sealed, everything washed in bleach mixture and then heat dried before priming with killz. I also washed everything in the trailer except subfloor in a tea tree oil/water mixture just because I had no idea about the trailers past history. With my disability my immune health is really important.
 

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