How have you 'improved' your camper

[sabconsulting]

The roof and the tie downs (my fave) I've read of course,
given the amount of work carried out in this 'my father's axe' of a camper would you say you are representative of a camper owner of this construction,
as in what is the typical life cycle of a camper

I've seen enough people having to rebuild parts of timber-framed campers in the US, and much newer ones than I have. Note that even some of the newer campers which claim to benefit from aluminium frames, may still have substantial amounts of timber / ply. The Outfitters certainly do.

Of course, 'truck campers' are more available in the US, so I guess when many find their cheap 2nd hand camper is rotten they just scrap it and buy another. Plus most camper owners seem to be in warmer / drier western states.

A much overlooked problem is sealant (caulking) - it needs to be inspected regularly and regularly replaced. That is a dirty slow job, but it is usually the sealant failing that is the cause of water ingress and rot.

Steve.

[zildjian]

There is our climate of course,


the very worst ones I see come up for sale are more neglected than anything else
usually as a result they've been kicked off long term storage somewhere and been dropped in a field somewhere in the long grass and left.

Then there's the UK manufactured camper that seems to have water ingress built in at manufacture

[derestrictor]

The only essentially watertight would be the fibreglass although someone here said the window seals in rubber can perish over time and they were made by Walker I think in the 70's or something so the rubbers would need looking at