Water Leak Through Light Fixture

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Roughingit

New member
Joined
Jul 12, 2019
Posts
4
We recently purchased a 2001 Jayco Eagle Travel Trailer. It had been sitting at a permanent campsite for over a decade when we bought it. It rained a couple days later and we found water on the floor and it had come out of one of the lights in the ceiling. I've read a little about this type of thing and one suggestion is to replace the a/c gasket, but I'm wondering if there's anything else that might cause it?

It rained fairly heavily the morning we bought it (before, during and after purchase) and there had been no leak. So I'm wondering if something could have come loose or shifted once we moved it out of the place it's been sitting in for the last 10 years. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I thought about taking it in to an RV place but I'm guessing they will charge an arm and a leg. That said, up until this point we've only camped with tents or a pop-up so I've never had to deal with an RV dealership before. Would appreciate anyone's thoughts or comments. Thanks!
 
Welcome!!

If it has been sitting for 10 years, to take it to a dealership or anywhere else, would likely mean installing new tires before you even start out... Tires on an RV usually die of old age anywhere from 7-10 years even though the tread looks excellent. Not too practical unless you plan on taking it on the road in the near future. (See tire manufacture dates in the library/glossary section).

Not too sure how you connect an a/c gasket to a leak from a light fixture though. Have you even looked at the roof or taken the light fixture down and inspected it?? There is a lot of maintenance required for an RV roof, mainly caulking but.... You can tighten the a/c down a little bit from the inside, there should be 4 bolts reachable from behind the removable grill if you would like to try that.

An arm and a leg, YES usually at 125$/hour or so, and that seems to say they will be able to fix it. Often not the case, I'm afraid. Becoming a trailer owner usually requires one to become a competent do-it-yourselfer in many cases, just to keep costs in line.
 
If you shut the light off, does the leak stop??? :eek: ??? ::) :-\ ;D :D ;)  Just kidding. I just had to.

Stu gives real good advice. Chances are the issue is from bad caulking on the roof seams and any other seams or joints. You'll need to get up there soon and check all that. Checking the roof should be done annually.
 
Any RV which has been sitting for years needs to have new caulking right away. The old caulking becomes brittle and can crack when moved due to the vibration and flexing of the body.
 
Thanks. I haven't got up on the roof yet. It doesn't have a ladder on it, so wasn't sure how well the roof would hold the weight. Read a little on the forum, and it sounds like the best suggestion is to get some plywood sheets and put those up there to walk around. So I was planning on doing that.

I am not afraid to do things myself, but want to make sure I do it right. I will try your suggestion of tightening those screws and put new caulk on. My question with the caulk is what type would you recommend I use? and will it be obvious where it needs to go? I'm sorry, I know these are probably really stupid questions, but I've never done anything like this before.
 
Any time water gets through the roof and into the ceiling, it is going to drip out of some ceiling opening, usually either a light fixture or the a/c .  That doesn't mean a thing as far as location - the place where the water comes in could well be several feet away.  You need to inspect all the roof, not just the nearest thing.
 
Roughingit said:
I'm sorry, I know these are probably really stupid questions, but I've never done anything like this before.

There are no stupid questions. If you don't know the answer, it's not stupid to ask.  So ask away. All we ask is that if you have a couple of questions, create a post for each one. It's less confusing when trying to answer one question at a time.
 

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
131,981
Posts
1,388,598
Members
137,727
Latest member
Davidomero
Back
Top Bottom