How to Caulk an RV | "DIY" NO LEAKS EVER!

the mistake most people make when they is they use too much you can always go back and add more if need be but most of the mistakes people make they just simply use too much or they over which all you end up doing is wasting and making a mess everywhere but I'm doing it right now just using a cloth it's a microfiber cloth you could use any type of cloth but you want to wet it down really really good saturated with water wring it out you could use you know one soapy water if you want I just I just have water I just just wet it down really gonna wring it out so what I'm doing is just putting very small beads of caulk on these joints and I'm simply just wiping down the excess caulk with this rag so that we can get a seam that I mean that's what your caulk ideally should look like you're not over caulking it's not going up the sidewalls you're applying the where it needs to be and you're not over caulking you [Music] and ironically the less you use actually the easier that it is because it's like I said the problems that you run into is just most people are using too much and therefore creating a huge mess and then you spend a lot more time cleaning it up and it makes the job just that much more difficult and so that's really all that there is to it I mean that's an example of a great job the product that I'm using I've tried a couple different products and my favorite product is this one here this is a 3m marine adhesive sealant vast cure for thousand UV now there's a few they have a couple of other series of products you can use this as medium strength which I recommend they have permanent they've got removable this is basic this is in the middle so it's workable and you can clean it up fairly easy really good stuff the reason I like is this this kind of has it leaves like a rubbery texture to it once it dries and so it makes it just looks really good and it also holds up really well to the UV rays and I also find that this stuff doesn't seem to attract as much dirt and sand like sticking to it after it dries in comparison to using other like a dyke or I've tried using dyke or like a non levelling sealant and I just find this this product to be a lot easier to work with and apply and just and I think it lasts longer too now another tip with your caulk you can buy this stuff this is a lot of caulk and honestly this is way more than I'm going to need for what I'm doing here but of course I found that this is the easiest way to apply it using a caulk gun you can buy small tubes of it which I do recommend for really small jobs this product here runs about seventeen dollars and I will have an Amazon link below in the description for this they also come with the the tube has a removable nozzle and I didn't another tip to I also you don't want to cut the nozzle you want to leave it the smallest diameter possible so that it puts out the smallest amount of possible okay alright so the very the very first step involved before you your RV is you want to get yourself some mineral spirits I like mineral spirits because it tends to be the most friendly to the other surfaces on your RV as far as it won't remove paint as much as say like alcohol which you could use some alcohol alcohol will really really clean something great you just got to be careful that alcohol has a tendency to remove certain finishes so you need to be careful with that so you want to get yourself some mineral spirits just a rag some Terry no terry cloth get yourself a good rag i'd recommend like a terry cloth not like t-shirt rags or old socks or whatever get yourself a good a good terry cloth towel okay you're gonna want to get yourself some disposable gloves and this is these are must-haves okay because this stuff here this product that we're using if you get it all over your hands it's it's a it's an absolute mess to clean up and also your skin could have some sensitivity to the product as well no issues with fumes or anything but you could have i know that you don't want to have wear some gloves so the labor III the the MSDS label on it but you want to kind of keep it away from your skin as much as possible so we just take our mineral spirits pretty simple just wet it down and you know you can see how it's kind of dirty it's a dirty here you know your whole object here is you want to get you want to get it as clean as possible and get all of the gunk and the funk removed off of it some people will say that well you need to remove all of the old caulk this isn't gonna fly you're doing a half-ass job there's some people that will say that I tend to disagree if your is in pretty good shape okay meaning it's not like flaking off and you you can just over the existing just make sure that it's really really really clean okay that's really important but if you have some areas where it's been kind of flaking off then you'll want to grab like a hook a little pick set you can buy them a pick them up or Harbor Freight and you'll just want to go in and pick them pick the out another tip I'll have for removing on an RV this is probably my favorite little thing basically all it is is a plastic razor blade that fits into a scraping razor blade tool okay and these are plastic and they've got two sides on them they work great because they don't Mar up the surface and you won't make scratches on your surface this has been one of the best things that I found I've looked into a couple of other there's a bunch of different tools on the market there's some aviation scraping tools that are a poly material that would also work really well I just found this to be really cost effective and I bought these at Amazon Prime and I will also have a link in the description to these plastic scrapers as well but I give them a big thumbs up they work very well for not only removing but also for removing decals stickers they work really really good for removing a decal you know without marring up the surface that's what we're looking for looking for a clean surface to work with very very important if you miss this step you might as well just you wasted your time so you've got to always work with a clean surface that the caulk will have good adhesion to another thing I forgot to mention that also makes this process a lot nicer is one of these drip free guns okay I tell you what guys I've been using one of these for a while now and I mean you guys probably remember the old-style guns it's like your and then you you know you pull this thing back and you jack it up and everything's jacked up right and you're trying to do this put on and you'll play with this thing telling you just get yourself one of these this eliminates all of the hassles and headaches involved with with a gun it works great you just set it down there's no more messing around with the tube and you've got you know like just all over the place and all over the tube you're trying to clean this up and clean this up I also have a link to one of these bad boys in the description another nice part about having these using these gloves is you know you could use your fingers and wipe the joint and then wipe your finger wipe your glove off on your rag just it just makes this whole you know this whole process lots of work you know when you're going around you know and doing an inspection on your RV come up with camera these are the kind of things that you're looking for like you know there's some separation here a little bit of separation here the is separated here here here and this is on the slide-out so you know this is the kind of stuff where this can cause a real problem even though this you know is on the slide-out this is where you'll have a lot of your problems with water damage entering into the coach by getting some caulk on here now and you know stopping this you're preventing a potential leak and this is what damages all RVs all the time you know all around the world in this situation here I'm not going to be removing you know the that's already on here is still in good shape I've just cleaned it up and I'm just gonna put a small bead over the top of it and wipe it down on these type of joints a lot of people think that oh you know water can't get in there and you know you don't everything to be concerned about that's incorrect information you do need to be concerned about even on these joints I don't know what they're called but I've actually they actually have experienced a leak by not playing on this edge and this edge you'll be fine here in the center this is actually just like a decorative piece you can actually replace these pieces but you'll need to make sure that you've got good joints there now of course I know the other thing to think about you know on the sidewalls like this you're really not going to have too much of a problems with water entry on the side you know it's always just going to be like on the top up there you could get up on a ladder and inspect those crowns those are areas where there's a lot of separation that can have [Music] and sometimes when you have when you after you wipe the down you'll have enough on your rag that you could just go back over it again and just keep applying a little bit more with what's on your rag just another little tip it's very simple once you get the hang of it pretty good but I think I'm gonna clean up here clean up a little bit here you can see where there's some cracks in the furnace vent here you know that's an area where water can get in water typically won't enter in here because it has a splash guard but got to be looking at those areas and on these doors the really important part is on the top portion down here not totally so much but this is where the water is going to really enter if it's gonna enter it's gonna be right in here another important area that you want to check out and inspect these are slide outs specifically the top of the slide outs the corners here this seam that runs along the top of it here you know basically in anywhere where water can get in any cracks and even inspecting some of the tops of your fastener heads you might want to put a spare little seal over the top of those but these corners will need some cost and then even then there's also another seam on your top up there as well then you'll want to want to check out [Music]

Channel: West Coast Roller

Views: 231,862

Keywords: RV, truck, camper, off, grid, van, boondocking, free, camping, oregon, coast, banshee, caulking, how to caulk an rv, rv maintenance, rv life

Id: d3iKbsFEh70

Length: 13min 59sec (839 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 03 2018