Demountable camper group

zildjian wrote: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.

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

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