Finding a Water Leak on Your Rig

Our owners of this 2003 Brave were camping a few weeks ago, and once they brought their jacks up and the unit kind of shifted a little bit, they had some water run off the side and had water inside, coming down on the passenger side here. They weren't really able to identify exactly where it was at coming in here, and so we kinda look in here. So we thought what we'd do is just go through, take some normal steps to see where the moisture could come in, some of the sealants on the top of it. I look in here and that's one of the things that's really important, is if you you have a water leak, that you identify where it's coming in. When you're gonna look at the rooftop or areas or a dealership is gonna look at it, and it doesn't necessarily mean that where the water's coming out here is where it's coming in to your roof.

You've got hollow tubes that are used from the roof to side wall joint. You've got a metal pan up here that runs the entire length. I have seen times where I've heard the water actually sloshing back and forth driving down the road in some of these things, so the first thing we're gonna do is try to look and see if we can identify any areas that we see moisture in. And I don't see anything in here, even with the window, you know, I see some stains, some water marks on the outside of the window, but I don't see anything inside and I don't see any signs. It might have a little bit of something in here, but nothing is wet, nothing.

And of course, it's been sitting inside here now for probably at least two weeks, so most of that stuff would dry out, but you would think you might see some water staining somewhere. So the first thing we're gonna do, we're gonna go up on the roof. We're gonna take a look at some of the obvious spots, obvious places where we see some moisture penetration, gaps in the sealants and so forth. We got clearance lights on the front of this. So whether it's a travel trailer, a fifth wheel, or a motor home, if you've got leaks coming in here, the first thing you wanna do is start at the top.

And actually, the first thing you wanna do is try and prevent that from happening by doing maintenance and checking that stuff once a year. That, we bring that up in many, many of our videos. It's important 'cause you have sealants up here that are going to expand and contract, and you're taking 'em down the road, you got road vibrations, and the other thing you wanna make sure is that you use the proper sealant. So with that, we're gonna go up on the roof. We're gonna take a look at what kind of sealants we have.

See if we can find out where this leak is coming from. So once we're up here on the roof, we want to take a look at some of the more obvious areas that we see caulking that has become dried or separated. So the first thing we notice on here that's very common in roof leaks is we have a fiberglass front cap here, which is a hard, molded fiberglass, and then we have the roof structure here, and this one happens to have a fiberglass sheet that's a little different style. You'll have a lot of RVs out there that have a rubber membrane here, and the thing you have to remember about the RVs and the materials that they use, is that when you get temperature changes, they're gonna expand and contract, and different materials will expand at different rates and that's very common. So you get some mornings that are 40 degrees in the morning and 60, 70, 80 degrees in the afternoon.

and all that stuff expands and contracts. And this J channel, they call it, right in between where the front cap meets that roof material, you can see that stuff slide several inches sometimes with temperature changes, so it's a very critical area to look at once a year at least. They call it a J channel because they literally slide the material underneath and give it a chance to move a little bit with that. And we see here all the way along the side, it looks good. I don't see any gaps in it.

One of the signs you can do, is as you come up, you put a little bit of weight on the roof, and then if you see it start to separate, then you know you probably have an issue in here, but this looks really good. It looks like it's been cap sealed a couple times above it, so I don't think that's gonna be one of our leak areas. But again, that's something I would definitely look at every single year. The next thing is anything that is mounted to this roof cap. And we notice a couple things here.

This happens to have a KING antenna that's added as an aftermarket, and with that, they ran the coax up to the front and did a very poor job in my opinion of sealing this area in the front. It doesn't look like the main part is too bad, even though it doesn't look good. But we notice here, right at the backside where the cable's coming in, is we've got a couple gap areas in there. So what we're gonna do here, after we look at the other areas, we're literally gonna put some water up in there and see if we can simulate or recreate that leak coming on the inside. The other areas, we see the antenna here.

That doesn't look too bad, even though it's kind of discolored, but it looks like it's completely sealed around there. We have a KING dome here for the satellite dish that's been added. That looks pretty good all the way around. Even the cables look good. I do notice right here, we've got a little bit of a pull away on our silicone for the other controller for the KING dome that is coming in there.

And one of the things you have to remember or realize about the roof structure and the caps of these RVs is it could be leaking over on this side in the RV, and there's a big metal tray up on the top of this roof structure. And it may not be leaking, but once the rig shifts a little bit, the water could run on that tray and come off this side. Same with the other way. That's why it's really hard sometimes to find a roof leak in an RV, because where it's leaking might not be where it's coming in. It could be coming in clear back on the back side of this and running all the way forward in the hollow roof to side wall trim in this, and then just finds little gremlin places to leak.

So what we're gonna do now, we're gonna actually, I'm gonna go back inside, take a flashlight, and we'll have Darwin come up here and literally pour some water in. The old-fashioned way of trying to find a leak is douse it with water and look on the inside, and so we're gonna do that right now. So we're back inside, and I've got Darwin up on the roof with a bucket of water. Normally you would use a hose. In this case we're just gonna try to isolate it here, and we're gonna have him drip some of this stuff on the inside.

So go ahead, Dar, and douse that coax cable coming off the KING TV antenna. Let's see that hole in that silicone. Okay, a little more. Okay. Put a little bit on the corner of the roof cap to sidewall and douse it pretty good.

Let's just see what a, you know, if they brought the jacks up, then typically what would happen if there's water condensation from the air conditioner, it'd becoming out on there. Okay, I do not see any moisture. Nothing. How 'bout the front cap? More towards the front side.

Okay, let's go over to that other coax on the other side now. Douse that pretty good. Keep it going. Okay, go over the driver's side corner. Just put some over the front of the windshield and the front of that side.

All right, that's good. So I don't see anything, again, leaking anywhere in here. You know, but again, that's the tough part about finding a leak sometimes. It's just, there's so many variables that it all depends on the angle that you're parked. Maybe you're at a slight angle in a campground or a driveway.

I've seen times and I've talked to people that have gone back to a dealership five, six times trying to get the same thing fixed while they were in the driveway like this and the rain came in and it went into the back and leaked in the bedroom, so they go to the dealership like this. The dealership douses the back end. Can't find the leak anywhere in it. This is the hard way to find a leak inside an RV. Now Winnebago, when they build their RVs, they bring 'em into a complete tunnel that coats it, soaks it, from every single direction and even from underneath, and then they go in and open every single compartment door and they look all over the place for it.

We are gonna go up on the roof and we are gonna put, once this dries out, we're gonna seal those two spots that we saw there in the front. We'll probably run a cap seal along that roof to front cap area, just to make sure. It looked good, but while we're up there with the silicone, we're gonna do it. And that's one thing to keep in mind, is that you can't always use silicone. You have to use the right sealant for the roof material that you have.

And that we did get from Winnebago. That is an authorized sealant. It's a self-leveling, so it's going to level out rather than, you know, some of 'em, if you're gonna put it on the side, you don't want it leveling, 'cause it's gonna run down, but this one does a nice even coat. So make sure you check. If you've got rubber membrane material, aluminum, whatever it happens to be, you need the right sealant for that.

So we're gonna seal these up just in case. At this point it's probably best to take it into a dealership, and what I like to do is I like to find a dealership that has a Sealtech machine or a procedure. And what Sealtech is, it's a large machine that they bring inside of an RV and set it in either the living room area or back in the bedroom, and they bring this big tube up into the roof vent and literally draw air inside the RV and pressurize it. Then they go outside with a pump up sprayer, like a Hudson or handheld and soap and water solution and douse the whole RV and look for bubbles that come in it. We had the chance to go up a few years ago to a dealership up in St.

Cloud, Minnesota, that had one of these procedures and were able to get some footage on a brand new class C motor home. And we did the procedure and found the wing walls had a little bit of a leak in 'em. They were bubbling, a few other places. So you gotta be able to find that leak where it's coming in at. That is the best way to find it.

You're seeing a lot of dealerships going to that. You're seeing a lot of manufacturers are using that at the end of the line to try and find the sealants. But again, get up and take a look at the obvious places first of all. Make sure you identify where it's coming in at and help the dealership at least understand, and with that you should be able to keep your rig from leaking. Again, we get back to the main thing, check those seals on a yearly basis at least, once or twice a year.

You'll save yourself a lot of headaches.