Currently in the process of demolishing our *extremely damp* caravan's interior, these videos have been so helpful for us, it's good to know we aren't alone!
Good luck! I'm glad that the videos have been helpful to you. It's been a great learning curve doing ours - if I were to do another, I would definitely do so many things differently. Thanks for watching :)
@@TheMcNeillsonWheels it would be great to see a video on the lessons you have learned and what you would have done differently if you can find the time!
@@connanbland9073 Definitely will! First thing I'd buy is a table saw, which would allow me to rip the battens down to the right size. It's a right faff otherwise. Machine Mart do one for £150 that can take a 50mm batten, so I'd get one of those. I'd also seriously consider not reinstalling the front windows - instead sealing them up with a single piece of glaziers perspex. They're such a vulnerable point for leaks in the caravan, and for the frequency that we open them, it hardly seems worth the hassle of making them watertight. There's a few other things, but I can't think of them right now!!!
Hi Folks, Got booted off the chat at the end of the video, as autoplay was switched on. Wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone to joined us for the Premiere this evening. Was really great watching it with you all. Take Care, Jamie & Stacey
Heya, It's a notification for our Premiere. The video will go live tomorrow at 7pm and we'll be watching it with you and be chatting with you as we all watch it together. Hope to see you there!
Had a sick poorly dog tonight so missed your live, sorry. Just caught up with the video now! It is looking like a caravan again, yeah! 10 out of 10 guys for perseverance! Well Done. Best wishes Sue, Brian and The Westies🐶🐾🧑🎄🎅🏻🎄🍾
Aw, sorry to hear about your poorly dog. Sending cuddles and a nose scratch. Yup, it's slowly getting there. Looking forward to the day when we can enjoy the fruits of our labours. Thanks Jamie 😀
hi nothing but admiration for your determination and attitude towards repairing your beloved caravan. We have been there many years ago and as someone said about supporting the floor underneath with jacks and boards to spread load evenly. I like you was surprised how much resin was being used. Then someone said as well as jacking and supporting floor did you seal all joints? Simply no we had not and it ran away underneath through floor joints and even the sides. So our next caravan floor delamination was more successful but not long after over wintering we discovered damp and black mould in bathroom behind mirror and upon removal discovered it was to us beyond repair. We still are caravaners 30+ years later so were not put off but more vigilant when buying a caravan. Your caravan is clearly a personal thing and as such it is great to watch you both cheerfully (mostly) dealing with problems as they arise, also Fray Bentos have not had one for years but have asked the wife to get one in lol. So good luck with the caravan looking forward to seeing end result, :)
Hi Rodney, Thanks for your comment. Some people have accused us of madness for repairing our caravan, but the way I see it, is that even newer caravans can suffer from damp. Just reading around the caravan forums on Facebook for a short while will show up posts by owners of 4 year old caravans with damp. Newness isn't s guarantee. So, we figured that we had the time, the material cost is low and we can get it exactly how we want it. Glad to hear that you had better results the 2nd time you used a delamination kit. I'm still not convinced - I prefer something more physical! Which caravan are you in at the moment? Jamie
@@TheMcNeillsonWheels we have a 1998 bailey ranger 2 berth wich only had 2 owners from new and has had a repair done in bathroom before our ownership 3 years ago. We had a couple of abbeys previously which were still solid after many years also a couple of nightmare caravans one of which registered 99% on the damp meter in the bathroom so we jokingly said our own wet room. Sadly we had to give up on that one when I went through the floor literally after winter storage lol. We have many happy and crazy memories of caravaning which we prefer to remember and try to forget the bad experiences. Cheers Rod
Yea, it's great stuff over small areas. Some commenters have suggested that, had I jacked up the floor from underneath, then I'd have gotten greater coverage. However, I don't think that the repair would have lasted long, as the floor wasn't adequately supported.
I used a single stage resin to do the floor repair. The one I bought was more than enough to do a whole caravan. I used 8mm dowels. I documented the floor repair on my own channel. The repair kits do work because mine had been repaired before and the previous repair lasted longer than the original floor!
Hi Steve, I don't follow? Do you mean removing the toilet to lay the floor? If so, I didn't replace the floor under the toilet as this was okay, just the flooring which sees the most foot traffic. 😃
I can't believe how much this job escalated. You are meant to overestimate the timescale so you look like a miracle worker when you come in under time ;-) Fun Christmas for you.
Its unbelievable how the caravan industry has got away with producing shoddy caravans over the years. They look good on top but its when you start to use them the faults show up. Never had a delaminated floor but did have external cracks in a Bailey Ranger which was done under warranty but appeared again a few months later!!!!! Its starting to look good, looking forward to the rest of the repairs.
Hi Brian, I couldn't agree more. I appreciate that some of their designs are there to save weight, but it often feels like they are designed to fail to promote the sale of new caravans. Hopefully, my repairs will keep it good for some more years.
Sorry was late catching your latest video was out on a pub crawl last night I wish anyway two years ago done my daughters caravan a swift ripped all the front windows as you did but I used plastic cladding to finish cladding 2.4l x 250 x5mil thick just used any adhesive no filling no screws no paint easy to cut with Stanley blade it is tongue and grove just fits together great stuff to work with your window seals fit round it no problem I see you used ply that's fine my I suggest you do your bathroom area with it I have a luner lexon did my bathroom with it you get all sorts colours I used white ash effect just had to cover that crappy wallpaper that's in every caravan take all your fittings off the wall clad the hole wall so easy lifts the hole bathroom nice silicone line around edges get it in b.q also plastic bead if you need it just saying but hats off to you and yours if I stayed nearer I would come helped you but I am in Scotland in lockdown 39 lol
A 'pub'? Not seen nor heard of one of those in weeks, here in Wales!!! Yea, there were moments when I thought about tongue and groove. That's probably something else I'd recommend to someone, as working with big sheets of ply is tricky. Don't mention the back of the caravan 😳 We've got enough in our hands at the moment, but will keep your suggestion in mind! Hope you're not suffering too much this morning! Cheers 🍻 Jamie
Just watched your first video now this one. I admire what you have done and you seem to be doing well. At present im in Alicante . What advice would you give to me if i was to buy a caravan.. to live in full time ?
How is all the work you are doing going to affect the weight of the caravan, please? Is it going to exceed the MTPLM? Interesting that your delaminated floor took so much resin. I put a board underneath mine and jacked the floor up to support it while injecting the resin. That must have reduced the gap on the bottom sheet, because I got far better coverage than your video suggests. Another thing they don't always tell you is to tape up the gaps between the boards, to stop the resin draining out. Anyway, good luck with the rest of the rebuild, it is certainly coming along nicely.
"How is all the work you are doing going to affect the weight of the caravan, please?" Not a clue! Will find out once the project is complete. If it does exceed the MTPLM, it won't matter in the short-term, as it won't be leaving site. In the event that it's significantly over, then I'll just arrange transport on the back of a truck. We had some delivered recently to site, from Shropshire to Anglesey, and they only charged £400, which although sounds a lot, is cheaper than running a tow car all year. "Interesting that your delaminated floor took so much resin." Yea, our floor was really awful. Perhaps I could have gotten greater coverage had I jacked up the area like you suggested, but I still think that it wouldn't have made sense economically, as I could still imagine it costing more than 4 kits. "tape up the gaps between the boards" Good shout. I did check after the 2nd syringe to check that it wasn't draining out of the bottom, which it wasn't! Thanks! Jamie
The lower sandwich hadn't delaminated. The upward bulge was caused as a result of the upper board separating from the foam, which had a large bowl in it. It's weird how the materials behave once they start to separate.
Wow,that escalated…I’m thinking just overboard the floor with 8mm ply…then use countersunk bolts through the top,big washers on the bottom…a good soldier never looks behind…
Myeah...you built it as they should have from the start. I hate caravan builders for cuting corners in "trafic" areas...for 10 dolars.. With all this corners cut they still charge a hand and a liver for one carravan. What did you use for gluing the wood? And another ideea - maybe before puting the scews underneeth fill the hole with some wood treatment because that area will be subjected to condensation. (ideally whould be some plastic screws if they exist....)
Hi I'm new to caravaning, just bought our first one, some of the floor has already been done, but noticed some writing saying pipes, is there a chance you can drill through pipes, wastes gas etc, or are caravan pipes routed under the caravan
Hello, Yes, looking under the floor would be the surest way to work out whether you're going to drill through something. It would be highly unusual for anything to run through the floor!
Hiya, I have a close family member about to buy a caravan to live in permanently but I don't quite understand the laws. How do you two manage to register with a Dr. etcetera with no permanent address? The caravan life sounds amazing but I'm just worried about this.
Hello, Thanks for your comment. Our Q&A video answers most of these questions. It was filmed two years ago, but is still relevant: th-cam.com/video/gl6ZRskKDBk/w-d-xo.html
@@TheMcNeillsonWheels Thank you very much! Apologies, I didn't see it before asking. It was very helpful, I'm grateful to find your channel and experiences as people taking this alternative path in life! :)
@@0MOLOTOV You're very welcome. Feel free to throw any questions our way and we'll help if we can. My email address is on our TH-cam channel page. Feel free to email.
Thought of this, then decided against it, as I wasn't confident of its longevity, particularly as we are in our caravan full-time for 9 months of year. At least with what I have done, I know that it will stand the test of time. Thanks! Jamie
Currently in the process of demolishing our *extremely damp* caravan's interior, these videos have been so helpful for us, it's good to know we aren't alone!
Good luck! I'm glad that the videos have been helpful to you. It's been a great learning curve doing ours - if I were to do another, I would definitely do so many things differently. Thanks for watching :)
@@TheMcNeillsonWheels it would be great to see a video on the lessons you have learned and what you would have done differently if you can find the time!
@@connanbland9073 Definitely will! First thing I'd buy is a table saw, which would allow me to rip the battens down to the right size. It's a right faff otherwise. Machine Mart do one for £150 that can take a 50mm batten, so I'd get one of those. I'd also seriously consider not reinstalling the front windows - instead sealing them up with a single piece of glaziers perspex. They're such a vulnerable point for leaks in the caravan, and for the frequency that we open them, it hardly seems worth the hassle of making them watertight. There's a few other things, but I can't think of them right now!!!
Hi Folks,
Got booted off the chat at the end of the video, as autoplay was switched on. Wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone to joined us for the Premiere this evening. Was really great watching it with you all.
Take Care,
Jamie & Stacey
I’m Glad Colin said it i thought iPad had crashed 😂
Heya,
It's a notification for our Premiere. The video will go live tomorrow at 7pm and we'll be watching it with you and be chatting with you as we all watch it together. Hope to see you there!
Sorry I missed you live, we were late in. Great progress on the van .
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the update.
Take care.
Jamie
Well done guys. Your getting there, home stretch soon. Looking forward to the next part 😃
Thanks! Hopefully things will speed up from now on!
Great to see your progress! Dare I say “almost there?”
So close! Not sure that we'll hit our Christmas Day target, but we'll see 😂
Had a sick poorly dog tonight so missed your live, sorry. Just caught up with the video now! It is looking like a caravan again, yeah! 10 out of 10 guys for perseverance! Well Done. Best wishes Sue, Brian and The Westies🐶🐾🧑🎄🎅🏻🎄🍾
Aw, sorry to hear about your poorly dog. Sending cuddles and a nose scratch.
Yup, it's slowly getting there. Looking forward to the day when we can enjoy the fruits of our labours.
Thanks
Jamie 😀
Cant wait to see finished project 🍻
Neither can we!!!
hi nothing but admiration for your determination and attitude towards repairing your beloved caravan. We have been there many years ago and as someone said about supporting the floor underneath with jacks and boards to spread load evenly. I like you was surprised how much resin was being used. Then someone said as well as jacking and supporting floor did you seal all joints? Simply no we had not and it ran away underneath through floor joints and even the sides. So our next caravan floor delamination was more successful but not long after over wintering we discovered damp and black mould in bathroom behind mirror and upon removal discovered it was to us beyond repair. We still are caravaners 30+ years later so were not put off but more vigilant when buying a caravan. Your caravan is clearly a personal thing and as such it is great to watch you both cheerfully (mostly) dealing with problems as they arise, also Fray Bentos have not had one for years but have asked the wife to get one in lol. So good luck with the caravan looking forward to seeing end result, :)
Hi Rodney,
Thanks for your comment. Some people have accused us of madness for repairing our caravan, but the way I see it, is that even newer caravans can suffer from damp. Just reading around the caravan forums on Facebook for a short while will show up posts by owners of 4 year old caravans with damp. Newness isn't s guarantee. So, we figured that we had the time, the material cost is low and we can get it exactly how we want it.
Glad to hear that you had better results the 2nd time you used a delamination kit. I'm still not convinced - I prefer something more physical!
Which caravan are you in at the moment?
Jamie
@@TheMcNeillsonWheels we have a 1998 bailey ranger 2 berth wich only had 2 owners from new and has had a repair done in bathroom before our ownership 3 years ago. We had a couple of abbeys previously which were still solid after many years also a couple of nightmare caravans one of which registered 99% on the damp meter in the bathroom so we jokingly said our own wet room. Sadly we had to give up on that one when I went through the floor literally after winter storage lol. We have many happy and crazy memories of caravaning which we prefer to remember and try to forget the bad experiences. Cheers Rod
Wow this really has become a massive job! Very interesting to learn about the epoxy system.
Yea, it's great stuff over small areas. Some commenters have suggested that, had I jacked up the floor from underneath, then I'd have gotten greater coverage. However, I don't think that the repair would have lasted long, as the floor wasn't adequately supported.
I used a single stage resin to do the floor repair. The one I bought was more than enough to do a whole caravan. I used 8mm dowels. I documented the floor repair on my own channel. The repair kits do work because mine had been repaired before and the previous repair lasted longer than the original floor!
Cool. I'll take a look! I have to admit that I was surprised that my kit did not cover a larger area.
Thanks
😀
Getting there slowly but surely! Wishing you both a very Happy New Year, looking forward to seeing the finished article.
Thanks for the kind words. Yes, it is certainly a longer project than intended, but hopefully it'll be worthwhile in the end.
The toilet is going to be a big job.
No pun intended
Hi Steve,
I don't follow? Do you mean removing the toilet to lay the floor? If so, I didn't replace the floor under the toilet as this was okay, just the flooring which sees the most foot traffic.
😃
You have so much to do still!! Your doing well though guys. Merry Christmas xx 🎅
Thanks! Perhaps Christmas is an aspirational target!
Take care,
Jamie
I can't believe how much this job escalated. You are meant to overestimate the timescale so you look like a miracle worker when you come in under time ;-) Fun Christmas for you.
Yea, I know, right. But we're here putting the floor down today, so that's progress at least 🤣 January 9th is the new deadline.
Its unbelievable how the caravan industry has got away with producing shoddy caravans over the years.
They look good on top but its when you start to use them the faults show up.
Never had a delaminated floor but did have external cracks in a Bailey Ranger which was done under warranty but appeared again a few months later!!!!! Its starting to look good, looking forward to the rest of the repairs.
Hi Brian,
I couldn't agree more. I appreciate that some of their designs are there to save weight, but it often feels like they are designed to fail to promote the sale of new caravans. Hopefully, my repairs will keep it good for some more years.
Going under the caravan outfit on 🤣🤣
We've all got that one outfit!
Sorry was late catching your latest video was out on a pub crawl last night I wish anyway two years ago done my daughters caravan a swift ripped all the front windows as you did but I used plastic cladding to finish cladding 2.4l x 250 x5mil thick just used any adhesive no filling no screws no paint easy to cut with Stanley blade it is tongue and grove just fits together great stuff to work with your window seals fit round it no problem I see you used ply that's fine my I suggest you do your bathroom area with it I have a luner lexon did my bathroom with it you get all sorts colours I used white ash effect just had to cover that crappy wallpaper that's in every caravan take all your fittings off the wall clad the hole wall so easy lifts the hole bathroom nice silicone line around edges get it in b.q also plastic bead if you need it just saying but hats off to you and yours if I stayed nearer I would come helped you but I am in Scotland in lockdown 39 lol
A 'pub'? Not seen nor heard of one of those in weeks, here in Wales!!!
Yea, there were moments when I thought about tongue and groove. That's probably something else I'd recommend to someone, as working with big sheets of ply is tricky.
Don't mention the back of the caravan 😳
We've got enough in our hands at the moment, but will keep your suggestion in mind!
Hope you're not suffering too much this morning!
Cheers 🍻
Jamie
Just watched your first video now this one. I admire what you have done and you seem to be doing well. At present im in Alicante . What advice would you give to me if i was to buy a caravan.. to live in full time ?
Are you thinking in of living in it in Alicante or the UK?
Let's keep going... until it's time to put the kettle on!
☕
What did you use to fill in the joints of the ply sheets?
Drat just a notification 😏
Won't be long now!
How is all the work you are doing going to affect the weight of the caravan, please? Is it going to exceed the MTPLM?
Interesting that your delaminated floor took so much resin. I put a board underneath mine and jacked the floor up to support it while injecting the resin. That must have reduced the gap on the bottom sheet, because I got far better coverage than your video suggests. Another thing they don't always tell you is to tape up the gaps between the boards, to stop the resin draining out. Anyway, good luck with the rest of the rebuild, it is certainly coming along nicely.
"How is all the work you are doing going to affect the weight of the caravan, please?"
Not a clue! Will find out once the project is complete. If it does exceed the MTPLM, it won't matter in the short-term, as it won't be leaving site. In the event that it's significantly over, then I'll just arrange transport on the back of a truck. We had some delivered recently to site, from Shropshire to Anglesey, and they only charged £400, which although sounds a lot, is cheaper than running a tow car all year.
"Interesting that your delaminated floor took so much resin."
Yea, our floor was really awful. Perhaps I could have gotten greater coverage had I jacked up the area like you suggested, but I still think that it wouldn't have made sense economically, as I could still imagine it costing more than 4 kits.
"tape up the gaps between the boards"
Good shout. I did check after the 2nd syringe to check that it wasn't draining out of the bottom, which it wasn't!
Thanks!
Jamie
@@TheMcNeillsonWheels Thanks for the replies. Interesting and good idea about getting the caravan moved to a site on a lorry.
Hi, excellent video, was the floor delaminated on the underside of the van, was there a noticeable bulge where it had sunk inside. Thanks
The lower sandwich hadn't delaminated. The upward bulge was caused as a result of the upper board separating from the foam, which had a large bowl in it. It's weird how the materials behave once they start to separate.
Wow,that escalated…I’m thinking just overboard the floor with 8mm ply…then use countersunk bolts through the top,big washers on the bottom…a good soldier never looks behind…
You're probably better doing that, to be fair. Ideally, mine really wants the entire floor replacing, but we were fast running out of time!
@@TheMcNeillsonWheels cheers,and thanks for the amazing story…I think we have a copy of your Mrs’s book !
Myeah...you built it as they should have from the start.
I hate caravan builders for cuting corners in "trafic" areas...for 10 dolars..
With all this corners cut they still charge a hand and a liver for one carravan.
What did you use for gluing the wood?
And another ideea - maybe before puting the scews underneeth fill the hole with some wood treatment because that area will be subjected to condensation. (ideally whould be some plastic screws if they exist....)
Hi I'm new to caravaning, just bought our first one, some of the floor has already been done, but noticed some writing saying pipes, is there a chance you can drill through pipes, wastes gas etc, or are caravan pipes routed under the caravan
Hello,
Yes, looking under the floor would be the surest way to work out whether you're going to drill through something. It would be highly unusual for anything to run through the floor!
Hiya, I have a close family member about to buy a caravan to live in permanently but I don't quite understand the laws. How do you two manage to register with a Dr. etcetera with no permanent address? The caravan life sounds amazing but I'm just worried about this.
Hello,
Thanks for your comment. Our Q&A video answers most of these questions. It was filmed two years ago, but is still relevant: th-cam.com/video/gl6ZRskKDBk/w-d-xo.html
@@TheMcNeillsonWheels Thank you very much! Apologies, I didn't see it before asking. It was very helpful, I'm grateful to find your channel and experiences as people taking this alternative path in life! :)
@@0MOLOTOV You're very welcome. Feel free to throw any questions our way and we'll help if we can. My email address is on our TH-cam channel page. Feel free to email.
For the spongy floor all you had to do was drill holes everywhere then inject expanding foam in leave to harden then jobs sorted
Thought of this, then decided against it, as I wasn't confident of its longevity, particularly as we are in our caravan full-time for 9 months of year. At least with what I have done, I know that it will stand the test of time.
Thanks!
Jamie
WHY !!
Why? Care to expand?
I enjoy watching you, but it seems a lot of hard work. 🥵
th-cam.com/video/0DBRLQM6RQQ/w-d-xo.html
29:03 - I explain why I'm doing this.