Sorry to sidetrack this thread, but I (think I) want to get into the camping scene. Man is it ever expensive! There's a 18'-20' 5th wheel I pass to/from my house. The homeowner had lots of toys that I'm guessing were mid to late '80s or early '90s. He passed away and his now middle aged son lives there. -Well, exists there. Grass mowed once a month, can't tell if any cars come or go... this camper looks a little weathered on the outside, but no dents, rotten floor sagging down, no caulked leaks... it's just sitting there on a gravel spot, not being used for the 8 years I've been driving by.
Do I dare ask about it? Can a capable handyman "remodel" these?
Again, sorry to derail. And no offense will be taken if this post is ignored (I'm on my 3rd marriage, I can take it).
First thing to do is find out who made it.
The build quality on RVs varies all over the place. Same goes for boats.
Same goes for EIFS houses.
When an rv sits outside with no maintenence, the sun cooks all of the sealent on the roof.
Vents, A/C units, roof seams etc..
When that sealant dries out, rainwater leaks into the core and delaminates the plywood or if it has a foam core, it just crumbles.
They kind of rot from the top down.
The water gets in through the top but it has noplace to go so it just sits there and rots the wood
Sometimes it is only the slide out that rots because of seal failure.
That you can repair.
If the roof or sides are rotted, it aint worth the effort.
The next thing to look at is the braking system and all of its wiring.
And all of the other wiring too
My brother in law is in the middle of trying to rebuild a 30 foot wildnerness from the mid 90s and somebody re wired the brakes on it with 14 ga romex and wire nuts and just left it all hanging loose.
The other major issue he ran into is that all of the propane systems and appliances have failed one after another.
And that gets really expensive.
That is because he has been running it off of a bulk tank in the yard and the pressure regulater failed.
Probably from overfilling the tank.
Apparently you should never fill a tank all the way in order to avoid this.
Something about head pressure
When that happens the tank will send a gooey nasty oiled up crud that looks like pancake syrup through the entire system.
And you really cant clean that out.
You can try, but that crud is in all the appliances so they just keep failing.
before you buy it, do some serious homework.
It might be a good deal.
But it might be garbage.
A cheap RV can be just as bad as a cheap boat and maybe worse.