| DEEPER |
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| As we continue to dig out all the rotten wood we find out just how deep the rot was , it was right through the caravan. The worst parts were the top and bottom corners of the frame although the whole down spar of the nearside corner was soaking wet and rotted away. |
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| The view of the damage in the top corner, if you look closely at the left hand picture, just above the curtain rail you can see the bricks of my house . Just to put the point across on the right hand picture you can see Annette's hand waving from inside the van. we decided to open the panels to the outside of the van because the damage is behind the side of the top lockers and as they are fixed in from the roof it would take a full roof strip down to get at it. |
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| The bunk supports are no more than 2 blocks of wood that have been cut out and sit in the gap cut out in the polystyrene wall fillings, NOT a full length baton, makes you think about letting your kids sleep in them eh. The wall still looks damp and rotten but in fact it is now bone dry, the brown marking is the remains of the old glue from the panel which is just glued to the polystyrene panels. |
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| This is the bottom corner damage, just before we opened up the outer panels, where the pen is should be a formed wooden corner brace, it was so bad that we are going to make a template and then make a new brace out of a piece of 4"x3/4" planed plank that I had in the shed we will also make a brace for the top corner in the same way. |
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| Finally Annette cuts the a straight line in the old plywood so the new ply will fit snuggly when we rebuild . |
| ThE SHOPPING LIST |
All the timber needed is 3/4 thick and planed so it was just a stock take of different widths and lengths.
- we purchased 10 by 6ft lengths of 3/4 inch block
- 2 by 6'x inch and a half
- 1 length of 6ft by 2"
- one 3ft by 6inch .
- later on I purchased two 8ft X 4ft sheets of 3.2 mm ply.
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From B&Q we purchased
- 1 large tin of Ronseal wood hardener
- Four tubes of evo-grip
- 1 tube of expanding foam
- 1 box of 2oo inch and a quarter screws
- 1 large tin of ronseal wood filler
- A large bottle of white spirits
- A tin of P40 fibreglass
- One pack of polystyrene insulation.
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From Harrington's caravans we purchased
- 4 rolls of 25 mm mastic sealant on a roll
- 4 tubes of non hardening mastic
- Three rolls of 45mm mastic from the service dept, for the wrap around awning rail on my caravan and the black plastic molding that hides the screws and keeps the water away from the screw heads
The service staff were very friendly giving advice and ordering anything I needed ,their prices are very reasonable too. |
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| In all we have not yet spent £100 and on showing the photographs to a local caravan repairer his estimate was now around £3500 to do a job of this size. |
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| DISCOVERY |
REBUILDING |
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