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Hi Al, Wizard, can you give me some advice please, 

on discovering a spongy spot on the shower room wall of my Esprit Charade, I decided to tackle the repair myself.    The further I looked the bigger the damp spot got, I have just spent the last four hours removing the shower room, then the wardrobe, and finally a four drawer unit. The worst place was above the wheel arch, this whole area is sodden! on removing some of the wall boards it appears that there are no horizontal or vertical wall supports, is this unusual?     the other thing is, on removing some of the board over the wheel arch I can squeeze drops of water from it even though the van has been under a  breathable cover since last September.     Is it easier to dry the wall and then remove the panelling or remove the damp/wet  wood then dry the area?                   I haven’t a clue where the leak is but I intend to reseal all rails and arch covers as a matter of course.

I have seen both your repair websites, looks like you did a good job on your vans, I hope I can do the fixit gang proud. I am also taking plenty of pics on the way

Hi Mussoda , some places use wardrobes cupboards etc for the wall stiffness , so you may find area's where there is no wall spars .
Is it easier to dry the wall and then remove the panelling  , it's easier to remove the damp wood first , then dry the wall out .
Well done on having a go at your damp repair , i think your probably getting to the worse stage , that is , where you've stripped out all the damp wood and you start thinking is this really going to be fixed up again ( well that's what i thought when i was doing mine ) , but this is the turning point . You start to dry the caravan out and then the rebuild begins .
The Fixed it Club members will be here when you need us , to offer you advice , feel free to ask as many questions as you like .

atb

Wizard

Hi Wizard

Thanks for the info and the encouragement, the next round starts on Monday

Mussoda

Thanks for the tip Duncant

I found a lot of the ply was so wet that it fell of with the paper!  the last layer bonded to the polystyrene is quite dificult to remove when wet hence my original question. I will remove the easier wet bits then put the heaters on and see how that goes