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Hi everyone, new to this forum. Just bought a 1990 swift corvette off a work colleague for the princely sum of £200 with a bit of damp or so i thought. Started removing rear seats, upper unit and also toilet/ wetroom and found the walls were saturated and also the roof (ceiling). seems like water coming through skylights and maybe outside rails? I have removed 3 sections of roof insulation which i am going to replace with new but the wall insulation is stuck solid to the wall board which in turn is coming off in bits. Any ideas on removing the wallboard to get a smooth finish to recover. One last thing where the units are fixed to the wall there seems to be steel plates bonded to the insulation, ours have corroded away were they originally just bonded then wallboard on top, any help will be much appreciated,

Ade and Ally

Here's some good places to find info http://hp-h.com/p/wizard41/   http://www.alanparkers.dsl.pipex.com/ .
The Steel plates are bonded to the insulation , just replace them with thin steel ( make sure you can get a fixing through the plate , ie don't get plate that is to thick ) .

but the wall insulation is stuck solid to the wall board which in turn is coming off in bits. Any ideas on removing the wallboard to get a smooth finish to recover.

Just keep picking at it , try a wallpaper scraper , once the new wall board is in place you won't notice small imperfections beneth . If you have some bigger chunks of polystyrene missing try filling with some explanding foam , if it rises above the wall surface just cut the excess off .

atb

Wizard

Can't say it's the best stuff , but i'd use PVA glue or one of the well known caravan sealants , like Silkaflex 512 Caravan Sealant , here's some sites to check out , http://theglue.co.uk/html/caravan_repair.html
http://www.engineeringtalk.com/news/sik/sik106.html
Olearys

atb

Wizard

Ps if you put the word " Damp " into your topic heading you'll have other members of the fixed it club offer you advice as well , some have done more extensive repairs than i have .

PPs Welcome to UKCS , they're a great bunch on here , i'm sure you'll get hooked , if your not already .

Hi, thanks for all the info. Bit more news on the corvette on closer inspection where the roof joins side there seems to be a gap between the two surfaces, a small tack is visable but is only through roof not side. the screws holding the outer trim on also only go through side not roof. i am going to remove outer trim tomorrow and have a better look, my question is:-

1. what holds roof to side panel?

2. where can i get a roll of mastic to reseal the trim (preferably tomorrow) does b and q sell it or are there any dealers close to swansea south wales

many thanks again Ade

Hi adygolding and welcome to the website.

to answer your questions

q1 the roof panels are tacked to the caravan frame with staples and tacks, they are found when you clean off all the old sealant. you will also see that the edge of the roof bends over the side of the caravan and the mail seal rail will in turn overlap it for added security.

q2 I guess you can get it from a main caravan dealers service dept or a very good caravan store. you can get it easily enough by mail order but that takes a few days. make sure you purchase the correct width of sealant as their are three sizes, to get the size you must measure the inner sides of the sealing rail.

hope that helps

Thanks Al, checked out your site, very informative and also very funny with a sense of humour which is one thing we should all have. Myself and missus are tackling the job, im pretty handy at the old diy but your information was pricelesssaving time and also money.

one final question for now, the timbers that are above the wall insulation have rotten to a mash, do they bond to the roof and in turn screwed through side rail?

the trim that fixes between wall board and ceiling joint, is this available to purchase or can i just run a bead of silicone where the corner meets

thanks again Ade

Hi Kaylie,

Currently looking for a toilet door handle and lock, it is plastic, in a beige colour.

Would you be able to help out.

Thanks

Jules