Sounds like a plan then, one bottle, 300 odd dowels and a bit of time, then if I run out of one shot due to the extent of problem I've got a bit of time to get some more. Thanks for advice.
Hi Boogins, My husband did our caravan a few weeks ago with the one shot he bought of ebay. It is easy to do. You just cannot use the caravan for 48 hours after putting it in. One point to tell you is that if there is any gap on the floor, such as two boards meeting, then you might get some of the stuff expanding through. We did and he had to cut the foam off with a saw. It expands just like the foam stuff you get in a spray can for filling in any gaps in you walls after putting in windows and the like. All together it took him an hour to drill and squirt the one shot in then put the dowels in. You don't need any weight on the floor after and it can lift the floor a bit when you say it is sunk down a bit. Ours stayed flat. hope this helps you.
Right got the dowels, 200 8mmx40mm and 100 10mmx40mm! Screwfix only had 2 packs of the 8mm dowels :-(
Figured I'd drill all holes 7.5mm through to bottom sheet and do 100 randomly placed 9.5mm hole but only drill through the ply to 9.5mm and not the polystyrene as well! One bottle of one shot ordered, hope it's enough, and away we go!
Off out in Doris our old but dry van next week, then going to attempt floor at the weekend all going well.
Will try and post pictures and updates of my experience!
Thanks for all the help and advice :-)
Hi Boogins, you get the dowels with the product. This is so you don't get the wrong size one yourself. Good idea to drill slightly smaller holes as some of mine were loose but never lifted out and are ok.
i discovered a strange problem with my fridge and the piece of floor it was fasten to..
it was actually bending the caravan side where the door is outwards.. when the stable type door on the van was pointing outwards a gap formed..
the cause.. my fridge door.. clever stuff this.. how can the fridge door bent the side of the caravan outwards.. he he
well the fridge door is heavy it sits on pin type hinge posts.. there is a good 10 mm gap at the top of the door.. it bounce up and down..
the fridge sits over the vans axle.. each bump the van goes over shoots the fridge door upwards.. the door hits the top hinge with some force and is actually acting like a slide hammer..
the floor at the front of the fridge has tried to lift with the force of the slide hammer door.. the cabinet the fridge sits in has tilted backwards and bent the van side outwards slightly..
the cure.. take out the free play in the fridge door a slide hammer that cant slide aint much of a hammer..
drill a load of holes around the front of the fridge.. bang in some dowels and one shot.. he he
one shot and dowels is so easy to do it can be used to toughen up the vans laminate floor anywhere its needed..
trog
ps.. i am not gonna be absolute with this but dont think its essential to avoid walking on the floor for 48 hours.. once the cure and expansion starts nothing will break if the floor is walked on..
Hi Gail, got my dowels separate as they seemed to add about £3-£4 on to the price of the kit and only provided 30! I got 100 from screwfix for £2.39! As far as I can tell they are exactly the same as the ones supplied with the kits, gonna cut them all to length anyway so they are flush when knocked in!
the people that supply the kits self a bottle of glue with a few dowels bought from the likes of screwfix thrown in.. he he
you can just buy the glue on its own.. the few you get with the kits might use an egg cup full of glue..
to be honest i dont think the people that sell the kits know how best to use them they have done what most do and followed the old two part instructions..
the dowels are generic bog standard wood joining parts.. i had a bag in my shed maybe bought twenty years ago.. he he
i did try and find out what the glue is commonly used for but never had much luck with that one..
Well for those of you interested, I've started the repair!
Carpet up no problem, floor marked, again no problem! Changed my dowels from 40mm to 30mm having found correct depth of floor. Only had 100 so started repair at front end where problem wasn't as bad.
Once carpet was up I realised how bad floor was as it really dipped in some areas. First 100 holes drilled, dowels in water ready (top tip!!) Batten fixed at kitchen end to lift floor. So here we go!!
Starts off well although very messy!(got a syringe for next lot) Floor didn't seem to be taking too much gunk which as it wasn't too bad was to be expected. As I got down to kitchen end the floor started to take more gunk! OK no problem, check underneath not leaking! Floor finished roughly 100 dowels and about 3 quartets of a bottle of gunk!
Now the problem starts!! Go back about an hour or so later and the gunk has started to expand out of the gap in between floor joints!! This was a low point so had a batten attached to bring it up! Unfortunately I didn't raise the adjoining bit of floor!
What a mess!! Now got to wait until fully cured to cut off and try and clean up!
I can fully recommend doing this fix yourself but would recommend a syringe to pump it in as I made a terrible mess.
Will post picture later and keep you all up to date!
Can't work out how to post picture from tablet :-(
Safe to say its a mess though!
On the plus the floor is now solid!! All be it with about an inch thick lump of foam on top of it!!!
Once I've got the other stuff I'll keep you updated!
So far though I'd recommend it just have to be careful how much goes in!
When I do the next lot I may limit myself to a syringe full per hole and see how it goes!
Definitely no dips now but may have gone the other way slightly!
looking at my one shot bottle i have used less than 1/3 of it.. i must have banged in 200 dowels.. no air gaps to fill.. mine was just to stiffen up a slightly springy floor..
if there are air gaps (for the glue to go in) i think it will be a whole different ball game..
To all those interested here is my full experience and advice!!
First area of repair was terrible! Do not just pump as much of this stuff in as the floor will take! It will expand and find any small gaps to escape from and then is a complete pain in the arse to clean off!!
I found to do a good clean repair a syringe was needed.
I levelled the sunken floor areas with battens across the top of the floor. This left at least a 5mm gap underneath the floor for the gunk to flow into!
Using a syringe it was a lot easier to judge how much gunk was going in!! Areas at side of floor took no gunk at all and the ones in the middle of floor would of taken loads! I limited my self to about 10-15ml of gunk in to the holes where the floor was bad. This worked really well and didn't use too much gunk. Once it had set hardly any had expanded from top of dowels and floor is now solid and required minimum cleaning up.
Battens removed, floor stayed exactly where it was! No dips or squeaking just a nice level solid floor.
Now to get it all sanded and filled and ready for Towersey festival next Thursday.
Thanks for all advice and I hope my experience may help others not make my mistakes!!