Sealing it up

[Krewe.of.KDR]

New RV guy....has anyone ever considered using elastomeric clear sealant throughout your RV to seal every crack you can find?? I am referring to the walls at bottom, top, vertical joints.....basically everything. It seams to me that there are cracks everywhere that work against the AC/Heat system.

 

[Excalibur]

New RV guy....has anyone ever considered using elastomeric clear sealant throughout your RV to seal every crack you can find?? I am referring to the walls at bottom, top, vertical joints.....basically everything. It seams to me that there are cracks everywhere that work against the AC/Heat system.

My personal opinion is that that is great for the exterior, but not so much for the interior. You would trap any and all moisture and vapors in the walls and leave no way for the materials to breathe or dry out. You would be setting yourself up for horrendous mold and mildew problems. I spent 30 years in building maintenance and saw it way too many times.

 

[Rene T]

New RV guy....has anyone ever considered using elastomeric clear sealant throughout your RV to seal every crack you can find?? I am referring to the walls at bottom, top, vertical joints.....basically everything. It seams to me that there are cracks everywhere that work against the AC/Heat system.

Welcome to the forum. I have no input but others will real soon.

 

[TheBar]

I don't see that as a moisture problem, maybe the opposite of keeping any moisture out of the walls.

I would think elastomeric sealant might be overkill for inside use. We did do that to a lake cabin using interior clear caulk. The reason was being unoccupied 7/8 of the time it had a spider problem. Not an infestation, maybe 3 or 4 per visit. My ex didn't want to stay overnight until they were gone. Until I sold it years later we never saw another bug of any kind except ones that flew in when the door was opened.

Along those same lines I had a new house built in a rural area 30 years ago. I talked to the construction foreman about my idea of sealing up every seam in the entire house inside the walls using spray foam. He said a lot of people pay a lot of extra money for that to save on energy costs. Nowadays people are using spray foam vs fiberglass insulation which would be even better. So I went in at night after the electrical and plumbing was in but before the fiberglass insulation and drywall was up and sealed every crevice in the entire 2 story house. Our cat killed 3 mice the first couple days but they could have come in when moving the furniture in. When I sold it 8 years later no bugs (or mice) and the house was super energy efficient.

 

[Krewe.of.KDR]

My personal opinion is that that is great for the exterior, but not so much for the interior. You would trap any and all moisture and vapors in the walls and leave no way for the materials to breathe or dry out. You would be setting yourself up for horrendous mold and mildew problems. I spent 30 years in building maintenance and saw it way too many times.

That makes perfect sense. Glad I asked. Thank you

 

[Domo]

Good building practice is to never install double vapor barriers - the moisture has to have a way to escape as @krewe.of.KDR aptly said.

In the winter you will find moisture running down the inside of your windows from cooking, breathing, etc. You will need to find a way to get the air OUT rather than keep it in.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

Sealing gaps that lead to the exterior is always a good idea, though too often an RV has so many hidden ones that attempting it is frustrating. We had one coach that had numerous openings from the interior to the basement, which we discovered when we left a couple bay doors open at a mosquito-infested campsite. I never did find them all, so we ended up just being sure to always close bay doors as soon as practical.

There are often places where some insulation can be a big help too.