Leak in top window

Hi All
I had water leaking round the seals of the window in my high top. I received useful advice from the forum, many thanks for that. However, I decided to take it to a local reputable caravan service and repair specialist. They removed the window, replaced old rotten wood with new, refitted the window and professioally sealed it. They did a superb job. Have to say it wasn't as expensive as I feared... £160 based on their rates of £50 ph. Just thought Id let you know, as you can panic about this kind of thing and fear its going to be £300+ . Teresa

Teresa,

Thanks for letting us know!

We have just had torrential rain and just knowing that the window seals are holding makes the patter on the roof that bit more bearable!



Best regards,

Ian

I had water running down the curtains and dripping on to my bed! When your feet are getting wet... start worrying lol :)
You can see in my pic that I have sheeting covering it... but all done now. My camper is hibernating for the winter :( not out til 1 April if I can last that long!
Happy camping!
Teresa

Teresa, who is your local caravan service and repair specialist? I'm having difficulty finding one near Bristol.

many thanks

I have a leaking high fop windows and am going to repair myself but just to let you know I did ask autosleepers about it and they quoted £180 to do it and it would take 3 hours
Richard

RichardB wrote:they quoted £180 to do it and it would take 3 hours
Richard

Having done both sides on my last van, I can confirm that it does easily take that long, as you have to remove quite a lot (in my case almost all) of the roof panelling. If you decide to DIY, it's worth asking A-S exactly what materials to use to seal around them, as the advice has changed in recent years (when I spoke to them they recommended butyl rubber sealant strip ~and~ silicone sealant in a bead around the outside).

Yes that's what they told me to use and have ordered some from them

RichardB wrote:Yes that's what they told me to use and have ordered some from them

Richard,

When I did one of mine, on removing the window, the hole that had been cut in the fibreglass hitop was cut too large and as a consequence the 'purchase' area on one side was only about 3mm.
The mastik strip that was used had squeezed out over time and that's why it leaked.
When refitting I had to reposition the window to ensure that it was evenly spaced within the hole that had been cut out. I resealed with CT1 and have had no more issues.

PB

peugeotboxer wrote:

RichardB wrote:Yes that's what they told me to use and have ordered some from them

Richard,

When I did one of mine, on removing the window, the hole that had been cut in the fibreglass hitop was cut too large and as a consequence the 'purchase' area on one side was only about 3mm.
The mastik strip that was used had squeezed out over time and that's why it leaked.
When refitting I had to reposition the window to ensure that it was evenly spaced within the hole that had been cut out. I resealed with CT1 and have had no more issues.

PB

Thanks - did you have to take off all the inside trim of the van off right into the area over the cab?  That would probably mean I need to remove the overhead locker and there are also two large bolts holding the canopy on that go through it...

Richard

The window I sealed was the drivers side. My 'van' is a four berth so access into the overhead cab area was easy.
However, I think I just removed the plastic interior trim around the frame, removed the blind assembly which then exposed the window fixings.
The window is held in place with a number of weird bracket fixings which took some removing and as a consequence were not refitted!
If you refitted these brackets then yes, you would have to strip out all the interior trim. The windows were obviously fitted before the interior was fitted out.
As I said, I used CT1 for sealing the window back in place, which has adhesive properties.
I also used a variety of clamps and wood strips through the opening window to clamp and hold the window in place whilst the CT1 set.
On removing the window, the fibre glass insulation and plywood trim backing was soaking wet. I actually left the interior trim off for a while to dry out. Fortunately I did it when we had a few 'hot' days!

Hope that helps.

PB

If you are going to use the A-S-recommended butyl rubber seal then I would strongly suggest that you retain the original fixing clamps. The butyl rubber compound never sets, and so you need to put the clamps on fairly loosely to start with and then tighten them as the mastic squeezes out. It took several days with mine as it was winter and so the mastic did not "flow" as readily as it would in warmer weather.

If you go down the A-S mastic route, I recommend that once it's fully clamped up you leave it for at least a week before applying the external bead. If you don't (I didn't on the first of my two) then you will probably get mastic continuing to ooze out and breaking the silicone sealant bead. First time I did it I had to cut the bead off and re-apply after a couple of weeks.

Im going to have a look tomorrow and see how it looks - the £180 from AS to do it is sounding like a bargain!

Started to work on my leak so opened a new thread at
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