Buying an RV brand new does not guarantee the RV is in the condition that it should be. Our pre-delivery Inspection at Pete’s RV indicated everything was in working order, but strong rains would point to leaks in the boat!
Fall is well upon us here in the Ozarks and with it came the rain. And this particular day it was raining rather hard.
The family was running around doing some last minute cleaning before my mother arrived from out of town. While tidying up the RV I noticed that the Nugget (best kids toy ever!) in the kids room was wet. At first I thought that one of the kids had spilled something in there, but of course neither of them knew why it was wet so I continued my investigation.
Soon I realized that not only was the Nugget wet, but so was the entire left side of the bunk room slide! I felt a rush of panic set in as I started to clear the area. Sam pulled up the carpet on that side to assess the situation a thankfully it appeared that we had caught the leak early. Not only that, but the Nugget had acted as a giant sponge to lift the water away from the floor.
Coincidentally (or was it?), our new Hevillo Dehumidifier was delivered today, but while reading the instructions we learned that the unit had to sit upright, unplugged, for 24 hours before it could be safely turned on. While we waited for the sitting period to elapse we did our best to blot up what water was there and put a couple of fans on the area to help it dry.
 | Dehumidifier 2000 Sq. Ft HEVILLO 40 Pint Dehumidifiers for Home Basements, with Continuous Drain Hose for Medium to Large Room, 0.66 Gallon Water Tank Capacity, Intelligent Humidity Control |
After the rain let up, Sam went outside to inspect the exterior of the bunk room slide. Almost immediately he was able to locate a pencil size hole in the silicone right were we were having water intrusion. Being the handy gentleman that he is; he had some silicone on hand was able to fix the problem.
Update: October 23rd 2021
We were having another rainy day here in the Ozarks and while doing some tidying up and preparing for our adventure to Lost Valley Lake Resort I noticed that there was a small puddle of water on the floor near the right side of the kitchen slide. I tried soaking the water up, but realized that this wasn’t just a spill. Water was actively dripping in from the corner of the slide.
We shoved a towel under the corner of the slide to soak up what we could, pointed a fan down the length of the slide, and kept a dry towel at hand to swap out with the wet ones. Thankfully, our Hevillo Dehumidifier was up and running and was able to keep the air moisture level steady.
Again, we had caught this leak early and we were able to remove the water as soon as the leak happened. Now we are just playing the waiting game for the weather to clear up so we can identify the intrusion point for this leak and fix the problem.
It is recommended to check the silicone seals on your RV at least once a quarter, but being as this rig has been out of the factory for less than three months we were not expecting to need to perform this maintenance yet and certainly did not expect to already see failures to the extent which we have.
In the video below Sam shows a few examples of the failure points we have had and how he fixed them with GE Advanced Silicone. He also performed our first silicone seal check and re-applied the silicone as necessary.
 | GE Sealants & Adhesives GE5000 Advanced Silicone 2 Window & Door Sealant, 10.1oz, Clear This silicone is rain ready in 30 minutes which is great for when you find a leak just before a rain storm! |