Oh dear, I have a lot of damp!

Over the Christmas holidays I planned to take advantage of time off work to fix the caravan floor.  There are two areas that are suffering delamination.  One by the kitchen the other near the fridge.  A caravans floor is made up of a sandwich of polystyrene between two sheets of plywood.  All of this is bonded together to make a very strong but light structure.  Over time frequently used areas of the floor can suffer when the bond breaks down and the plywood is free to move up and down when you walk on it.  This then starts to damage the polystyrene and it spirals downhill.

So I moved the caravan from storage to the inlaws drive to start repairs.  This however got interrupted by me finding a damp carpet next to the kitchen the following morning.  This had happened only once before, both times after exceptionally heavy rain.  The first time I put it down to me not shutting the caravan door properly.  It would turn out I was very wrong!

I put the floor repairs on hold to investigate where the water might have been coming in.  Inside both kitchen cupboards the floor was wet.  Mmm, maybe the source is somewhere in there.  A little look in the right hand one showed this.

In the cupboard to the left I found this.

I had a big problem!  There and then I decided I would need to remove the kitchen to expose the full extent of the damp.  How far would it go?  Getting the kitchen out was not as easy as it sounds, due to rusty or hidden screws but it did come out in the end.  Pulling off some wall paper a little digging showed me that the damp was quite extensive and looking like it was the full width of the back wall.  It wasn't clear at this point where the water had been coming in but one of the handles looked to be a possible source, as well as the awning rail.

Out next was the toilet and toilet wall.  Yep you guessed it, lots of damp there too!

A little worried by what I found I decided it was time to go home and consult the Internet for advice.  That is where I found the 'Fixed it' club on UK Campsite, a fantastic source of advice and inspiration.  It seemed all was not lost, it was repairable.

Simon