When getting my caravan ready to go away on holiday just over two weeks ago I found a patch about a foot wide and a couple of inches down at the rear of the van was 'spongey'.
The van is a Swift Corniche 14/4 from the mid eighties so it is quite old, so when I contacted the dealer I bought it from last year he wasn't even interested in taking the job on of repairing it. They simply 're-pointed' the seal around the outside of the van and then told me that the wallboard inside ideally should be replaced (whilst still saying the job would cost £350-£400). At this point I decided to go and hunt out some info on what exactly the job entailed and found this fantastic site and the guys who have posted up on the internet the series of repairs and step by step instructions of their own repairs.
After much discussion with my Father in Law who is also now a keen caravanner I decided to tackle the job myself and have spent the last 3 nights doing the work.
Luckily when I stripped the wallboard off the timber frame and polystyrene was in a good condition and the damp hadn't caused any rot.
My main problem was trying to get the wallboard to match - as this is a van of over 20years old now I was told by my dealer the board would now be obsolete! - So off I toddled to our local B&Q depot and bought some plywood, grab like nails adhesive, flexible wall filler and a 'sample' of a piece of wallpaper that was as near a match as possible. As I then continued with the job I started to take out the rear cupboard above the window & actually found that the bottom or shelf inside the cupboard was in fact made from the wallboard found in the van and subsequently have used this in the repair to the wall and refitted the inside shelf of the cupboard with the plywood I had bought earlier.
As a side issue to this I have actually been told that there is a company called O'Learys Motorhomes based in Hull that will try to match the board to the hundreds of different wallboard they have if you post them a piece of the paper/board. (Sorry if thats already in your directory)
So Many Thanks to the people who have put up their 'repairs' on the internet which gave me the advise and encouragement I needed to do this repair - and to those in a similar position to where I was two weeks ago I'd say give it a go..
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