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Hi All,

I posted earlier in the year regarding a damp caravan and thought you may like to see how we are getting on.

Slow progress but we do have young children and a business so we just have to accept that its not going to get done overnight.

We have our concerns over whether the van is worth the effort, but we are going to do it anyway, I would be interested in any advice regarding making a new interior.

Never done any work on a caravan before - in fact never even slept in a tourer, but we are reasonably okay at DIY.

We are concentrating on stripping everything out at the moment and replacing struts ect.., will do the right side awning rail before removing left hand furniture to maintain some stability.

Any -ANY- advice welcome.

We have got a bit further today, we have removed the wooden struts underneath which were partly rotten, the wheel arch has had to come out also, this will be back in tomorrow, also I have cleaned my first part of awning rail - what an awful job it takes forever!!!. 

Hope you like the photos

S

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/ithaspotential/

Well done so far , i've had a look at the pictures , looks like plently of work to do there , but it does come back together quicker than it came a part .
One thing i would say is don't try to strip out too much in one go , strip a bit , then dry out / repair spars , seal the outside , reboard . Then do the next bit .
If you remove to many spars you could be heading for problems with the weight of the roof pressing on the unsupported side walls .
Could you let me know if i can do a link to your website ( on my website ) thanks .
Keep you the good work , and ask as many questions as you like , the Fixed it Club members will be here to advise you when you need us .

atb

Wizard

Thanks for the tip wizard,

we plan to do the wheel arch & struts today, well whats left of them we haven't removed any and there is barely any in.

we had hoped to re-strut & re-seal the whole van before reboarding because it is so dirty and we are using wallboards - do you think this is a bad idea? maybe we could board & tape up some polythene, let me know what you all think.

Of course you can link to my webpage, when I get around to it I will put yours & the other fixit-clubs on too.

Thanks for your help

The reason for reboarding as you go is the caravan gets a lot of it's strength from the walls being bonded like a sandwich , you may get away with just replacing the spars as you go and do the boarding last , but if the structure becomes flimsy then you may want to consider either to begin the reboading or to add some supports to take the weight of the roof .
See how it goes , at least you'll know what to watch out for .

atb

Wizard