Help I'm in over my head?!? water damage in new to me camper

[StephanieS]

So last fall I bought my first camper. Its a 2005 Forest River Cherokee 28A lite travel trailer. I bought it for $1000 off my neighbor after her husband had some medical issues and she was looking for some quick cash. I gave her her asking price as I knew why she was selling it and it seemed to be in "decent" shape. I noticed a small section by the bed that was soft (about 1-2' feet) and She did disclose that there has been a minor leak in the skylight in the bathroom which they had repaired, otherwise she claimed that everything worked. The tires are brand new and she included all of the accessories they had bought for it (drain lines, extension cords, jack blocks, tons of stuff) as they wouldn't be able to camp anymore.

Well I pulled it out of covered storage this week to start some remodeling (mostly cleaning, painting, and new upholstery) and it reeks of mold. I pulled out the bed and some cabinets and the entire drivers side floor is extremely soft about 6"-1' from the wall. it is also extremely soft under the slide out to the point that the floor cant support the slide as it is extending and the droop causes the slide to stop partially out. After opening up the walls and part of the floor and removing most of the furniture from that side it looks like water was leaking in from around the slide out and has damaged the entire length of the floor along that side. :'(

I am handy and have been remodeling our current home, so I think I can handle most of this myself, but I am so disappointed and questioning myself as to why I didn't notice any of this last fall?  So for those of you who have done extensive renovations (walls, floor and ceilings) what am I in for? Cost ideas? I'm not made of money but am happy with simple functional things, pretty is always a bonus though.

I will continue to gut this beast the rest of this week and see just how much worse it gets. What should my game plan be to rebuild this thing? I assume joists and subfloor first, followed by floors, walls and then ceiling? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[SeilerBird]

Very few people do extensive renovations to an RV. It is not worth the time of effort.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

RV construction is pretty simple, so your at-home DIY skills should be adequate for the task. Time-consuming, but not necessarily expensive.  And at $1000 for the trailer, you can afford to spend some money on it. In decent working condition it's worth about $5k.  People can easily get deluded by water damage in RVs, especially newbies. The underlying damage is often hidden and the general Wow! factor of the cleverly designed RV interior diverts attention from the tech details.  You need to spend several hours poking around to notice the extent of it and most of us don't have the opportunity (or the dedication) to do that.

The biggest problem is that the walls and cabinets are laid on top of the floor, which in turn lies on a metal grid over the trailer chassis.  If you can tear up the damaged area without having to remove an interior or exterior wall or a bank of cabinets, it's usually not too bad. The metal grid should be ok, so it's a matter of renewing the subfloor and then applying new flooring for the "pretty".

 

[HairyWBush]

I am going through an extensive back wall repair on my 2005 KZ so I may be able to give you some advice. My best advice is to do everything at once. Go all out. I thought I would be able to cut corners and ended up having to redo 1 or 2 things. Wasn't bad though... Anyway, I had some BAD rot; Everything from the roof, to the back wall, to the side walls, to the beams, floor, all that. AND I'm living in it. Post up some pics and let's see what you got. RV engineering is, I mean there is none in these older ones lol.
What tools do you have? Right off the bat it sounds like you should pick up a couple hydraulic bottle jacks if you don't have 1.

 

[Jennay]

Speaking from experience in the gutting and renovation of our motorhome the gutting part is the worst.  Closely inspect how you take everything apart and take pictures of everything. 
START FROM THE TOP DOWN, (if you can physically see the damage from a leak than its like an iceberg probably much worse due to how well water travels through wood, it acts as a sponge and will actually suck the water down)
BUT the materials are relatively cheap your biggest expenses are Adhesive (because there is never enough) and insulation.  It is time consuming which is why most say not worth it.
Best piece of advice plan your project timeline based off money and help.  We just finished our entire 23ft MH roof rebuild for about $700 but it would have cost $15,000 to take it in.
Also Epoxy is your best bet when dealing with foam.