Replacing Wet Bay Floor

Now that I know how to make movies, watch out! I’m likely to be posting lots of them.

This movie is about the floor in our wet bay (under the holding tanks), which has been absorbing water from rain and wet roads.

We learned that the wrong material was used by Tiffin in two models, Phaeton and Allegro Bus, for the years 2007-2010, an estimated total of 9,000 rigs. The company acknowledges that fact and will replace the floor free for 8 years. That’s the good news; most manufacturers won’t cover defects in manufacturing after the one-year warranty has expired. The only hitch: the owner must bring the motorhome to the factory service center in Red Bay.

We first observed the problem in June when our friend Dennis Hill, who had the same problem on his Phaeton (that he no longer owns), pointed out that our floor was sagging between the support beams, as seen in the first photo. We were traveling in Alaska at the time, 4,000 miles from Red Bay.

In September we were at Hart Ranch in Rapid City, SD, our home base. We realized the floor was so saturated that it was sagging on the passenger side and allowing the fresh water tank to tip enough to drip water out of the overflow. Slides 2-7 show the soggy floor drooping below the edge of the storage doors of the coach. Slide 6 shows the corner of the freshwater tank above the saturated floor. Keep in mind the bottom edge of the doors is about 3-4 inches below the floor of the coach.

We hired Toby of Land Roamer Mobile RV Repair in Rapid City to lift the floor and attach 3 pieces of angle iron to support it enough to continue our travels and get to Red Bay safely. (We’re presenting this repair bill to Tiffin, as well.)

The first stage of repairs was to remove the floor. It literally crumbled off, and the techs said it was the worst they had seen. Then the black and grey tanks were strapped up and the freshwater tank removed. It was at this point that Curtis (slide 16, in plaid shirt) noticed a gap above the tanks that could be the cause of the sewer smell we’ve suffered with since the coach was new. The odor occurs in the hallway between the refrigerator and bedroom, not in the bathroom itself. Curtis said there’s a gap that should have been filled in with foam. He had a team member do that before they finished the repair job. Here’s hoping that fixed the problem. We’ll know when we get on the road again.

After everything was cleaned up, the new floor was installed and the freshwater tank re-installed. All pipe connections were made and tested for leaks. We’re really happy to have this repair finished!

A final note about making movies: it takes quite a while to save the movie once you have it put together. But it takes only a few seconds to post the blog, unlike when I include lots of photos separately. I think I’m hooked.