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Dear all,

Can I have opinions from all you clever people?  I have a touring 'van I keep under cover and never seriously worry about damp - always ok on our annual service (and it's quite new).  But I'm planning to buy a second, slightly older (5-6 years) 'van to keep outside on a seasonal pitch year round. 

I read a post on here from someone who bought an old 'van, it wasn't damp, but he queried if he should consider going round all the seals/rails etc with a squeeze of sikaflex as a preventative measure.  No one seemed terribly enthusiastic about the plan and one post suggested he'd do more harm than good.

Can anyone please explain the lack of enthusiasm as I would have thought it would be a good idea - but what do I know?  I have a desk job...  My first caravan started to get damp (I first noticed when the wallboards were discoloured after a rainy break).  It was too old to warrant spending too much on it and we were planning to trade up in the following year or so anyway.  I ended up doing a quick and dirty run around all the seals/vent/awning joints with Sikaflex and was really impressed with it's adhesion.  It did take a lot of  finger smoothing/meths clean up of excess Sikaflex at the end, but the bond was completely solid and cosmetically acceptable once I'd spent an age meticulously smoothing/removing excess.  When I took the 'van in for part-exchange 18 months later, the bond was still as good as the day it was done and no damp was detected.

Yes, I can hear you all cry 'bodge' - that I should have removed the awning rails/rubbers etc - but that would have taken an age and I did my entire 'van in a day  - a race against time before the next holiday loomed.

So I suppose the question is - if I do this on my seasonal pitch tourer as a preventative measure, why might it do more harm than good?  Might it not stave off damp problems that result in the inevitable degradation of the sealants used in manufacture?  I have to say that, after the first experience of Sikaflex, I'm a big fan - it just seemed so solid (yet flexible..) and, well, waterproof....

But... If you really feel the need to do it as a preventative rather than do it 'properly' then maybe Caratape has been produced for you

 have a nice day

Thanks very much for your thoughts - it seems no one agrees whether it's worth doing as a preventative measure!  By the way, I read somewhere (was it John Wickersham's caravan manual?  Can't remember now...) that, whilst white spirit can adversely affect adhesion properties, meths doesn't - which is why I used it last time - and as I said above, the bond was extremely strong.

And, no, I don't bodge in my desk job - but I am strong believer in prevention being better than cure.