Soft FLOORS

[mikesea]

I bought a 2010 Jayfeather in 2010.I was second owner ,unit used very little.Floor was ROCK HARD.As my wife and I traveled,floor has started to become spongy.May others make same claim.What I did,was to take it on MYSELF,BECAUSE,while traveling,I was told unit was out of warranty and I likely had a leak.After spending alot of time looking I found no leak.My wife nearly went thru the floor upon exiting the shower.Therefore ./I gutted the bath,found the flakeboard decking almost non existant in places.My BELIEF,the HUMIDITY of living in Fl.Keys added to the thousands of miles we traveled in rain ,weakened the flakeboard ,which has NO waterprof glue.The Tarp type undercovering,which I guess is supposed to protect the decking does little.humidity my guess permeates thru and breaks down the decking.I had a trip planned,due to living in middle of nowhere ,I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands.I gutted the bath,and replaced floor with 1x6 tongue and groove southern yellow pine.Plywood would be impossible to fit in place due to small area.Job turned out great. Just last month,same issue ,but now at the entrance of the unit.Again.lots of rain,hundreds of miles towed AND the area is right behind the wheels.So ,i placed a 3/4 plywood brace ,cut to size between the beams,then used angle iron and self tapping screws to secure to the steel beams.i do hope Jayco changed or will change the materials.Far too many complaints now for this problem.

[ctbailey]

Hi Mikesea,

I had a similar problem on a Forest River product. Although mine was eventually traced to water infiltration around the entry door.

The floor in an "ultra lite" trailer from FR in 2004 is a sandwich composite: Vinyl,Luan,Styrofoam,Luan,and finally that "Tarp" membrane.

Once water gets in, the "tarp" stuff traps it. It could be getting into the floor from the corner where the floor and wall intersect, and then it travels to a low point and sits. Thats why you had hard floors one year, and later in life they got spongey.

My solution was to gut the trailer form the nose back to the shower... basically I kept gutting until I found dry composite floor. Then I fashioned up some custom joists out of Pressure Treated boards, and built a typical plywood/joist/plywood floor.

I did not re-hang the folding steps in my new floor. I kept the possible water penetration points to a minimum.

That experience is precisely why I went to Jayco, because they use actual plywood and not flawed, or composite floors in the Jayflight line. I needed a bigger truck, but I'm hoping never to build a new floor in a camper ever again.