Roof leak from sky light fans..

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streetstunna600

streetstunna600

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Joined
Jan 30, 2011
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20
Location
kansas City
What would you all recommend on replacing this damage? I was thinking maybe just saw-zaw out and prybar the celing out. replace the cracked skylights and put in some material from home depot.. Good idea? has anyone delt with this kind of damage before?
 

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It looks really bad in the pics. Te rest of the celing to the front looks fine.. There is a piece of trim running over a splice by the kitchen i was planning on just taking all the celing off to the back of the RV and just redoing it all.. just wondering what kind of problems i may run in to? electrical? Or is that mainly in the walls? anything else? This is a 1989 Open Road 28 foot by tiffin alegro motor homes.. Rest of the home looks great.. Grandparents owned it since it was new.. grandma developed cancer and stopped traveling about 3 years ago. So it was sitting at there house for that amount of time.. bought it for a thousand dollars from them..
 
Well...I think you are definitely going to have to open it up to see the extent of any damage there may be to the framing members. There are at least 12 volt wires for the fans. There is probably 110 volt wiring for the AC unit, but that may not be close to where you are working. Personally I would take a little at a time and not stick a sawzall blade in too deep until I could get a look at what I was dealing with. I did an outer skylight repair on mine a couple of months back but it didn't involve inside or work on framing members. It did involve using Eternabond Tape to seal the skylight to the roof. Pictures are here if it helps. Good luck with your project...the price was right...!
 
That's a lot of water damage. The skylights can be removed easily enough and new plastic covers are available for them. I would bet on serious structural damage to the roof, which probably has rotten wooden cross members as well as  delaminated plywood underlayment and  soggy insulation.  Open it up slowly and carefully and see what you have. As Waterdog says, there will be 120v for the a/c and 12v to the fans and ceiling lights. And maybe ducting for the a/c, if it is that type?

And don't be too quick to conclude the skylights are the leak source.  If it hasn't had roof maintenance in years, I suspect all the various seams are bad and need recaulking. Any water that gets under the roof usually runs along til it comes out around the skylights on the inside.
 
Thanks for the Information.. What is the celing consist of? Is there sheets of MDF or ply wood with paneling? Is there insulation in there? If so is it like house insulation? If i tear down the first layer of paneling am i going to see screws screwed in to stud forms? I guess i could just go blindly at it, but if someone knows how the celing is put together than that would give me a better idea of what to do or what to get to replace it.. Thanks. Aaron
 
Mine had metal trusses, but I believe some were built with wood. Don't know about yours. I would bet that if there is any subceiling it would be fairly thin and possibly glued and or screwed to the framing members although as wet as that has been there probably isn't a lot of holding power going on. Mine had fiberglass insulation. I think your best solution is to do a little exploratory surgery so you can see first hand what you're dealing with. Keep us posted on your project, it will be interesting to see what you encounter.
 
Sounds good, I think I read something about it there being metal trusses or studs.. I will take pictures and post up as i go along.. Just hope im not jumping into a project i can't handle.. All this snow is not helping the matter either!!!
 
streetstunna600 said:
Just hope im not jumping into a project i can't handle.
Click to expand...

Is there an alternative? It has to be fixed to be usable and you already have the $ investment made for the MH. The only way you are going to find out how extensive the damage is and whether it is worth fixing is to open it and look. If you have basic carpentry skills (you must if you own a sawzall...right?) you shouldn't have too much of a problem. Just take it slow and always think ahead before you cut about how the new material is going to meet the existing material and be fastened. Do post some pics, and if there are questions, there are lots of people on this forum that are willing  to help with answers.

If it were me, I would start by pulling the trims off the fans and vents and seeing if I could pop down a little of the ceiling sheating at those locations to get a look. Then maybe cut a 10 or 12 inch square hole in the worst of the ceiling, and expand from there.
 
Sidewalls are often metal-framed these days, but roofs are mostly wood. Older rigs will typically have wood frames in both places. All deopends on year, make and model.  No point in conjecturing - open her up and see what ya got.
 
If you are on a budget you can look on craigslist for hired help. yes, home depot will have paneling and frame wood for the job. you want to make sure to use a polyboard type of waterproofing lining under between the paneling to prevent some of the damage that happens when you get a leak. Also, use an enterabond on top or roll it with a rubber roof next time. I just got done with a motorhome project that was a nightmare. I hired a guy to help that did framing and drywall and was also a mechanic. I think my RV is waterproof now lol. It also is lighterweight and I while I was at it I replaced a lot of the lights with battery operated lights, and re-wired a lot of things to the solar power system that came with the rig.

It doesnt have to be a big project. Just make sure to hire the right person. Home builders are out of work right now, its not hard to take a home builder that is also an auto mechanic and they seem to understand how to make a car into a home and also know weight capacity  and wiring.... I would have blown myself up somehow
 
SarahMatheson said:
If you are on a budget you can look on craigslist for hired help. yes, home depot will have paneling and frame wood for the job. you want to make sure to use a polyboard type of waterproofing lining under between the paneling to prevent some of the damage that happens when you get a leak. Also, use an enterabond on top or roll it with a rubber roof next time. I just got done with a motorhome project that was a nightmare. I hired a guy to help that did framing and drywall and was also a mechanic. I think my RV is waterproof now lol. It also is lighterweight and I while I was at it I replaced a lot of the lights with battery operated lights, and re-wired a lot of things to the solar power system that came with the rig.

It doesnt have to be a big project. Just make sure to hire the right person. Home builders are out of work right now, its not hard to take a home builder that is also an auto mechanic and they seem to understand how to make a car into a home and also know weight capacity  and wiring.... I would have blown myself up somehow
Click to expand...
Thank you for the info! I will actually look for someone tomorrow that may have an idea on what to do and not do! I like the battery light idea also.. 2 of the lights in the back look as if they took some of the water damage. So may just take them out and just put in battery lights..
 
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