Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Hatch Leak

Well, it's happened, a leak. Boo! Hiss! Boo! We have had a tremendous amount of rain, but a leak is a leak - must fix.

Fortunately, it's localized in the hatch, but the first time it leaked water found it's way into the cabin and soaked the mattress and popped up the tiles. Live and learn and patch and seal, repeat as necessary.

I bought a rubber garage seal and some 1/8" flat aluminum stock that I'll put over the hatch hinge, plus 1" of overhang on each side. Hoping this will work.

-Leah

2 comments:

  1. Did your adjustments work? I have a hatch leak on my teardrop and all the weatherstripping in the world hasn't fixed it. :(

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    Replies
    1. Damn, I have been a lazy blogger!

      I ended up not putting an aluminum strip over the hatch hinge, instead I taped over the entire hinge with heavy duty insulation tape that I got at Home Depot. It worked, for a while, then it leaked again.

      New plan is to use Z channel.

      What the problem is is that I initially cut the hinge too short, I cut it to 5', which is the hatch width. That was wrong, I needed to leave a 1-2" overhang on each side for the water to drain away, kinda like gutters on a house.

      This problem is a hard one to remedy without taking the entire hatch off and installing the correct length of hinge. I have to admit I like the challenge of trying to fix it.

      So, what you have to do (if you haven't already) is figure out how to guide water away from the hinge, AND away from the sides, mine drips in from the left side.

      Z channel is shaped like a Z, I found some in the gutter section at HD in 12' lengths. Enough for two! So, the new plan is to cut a 5'3" piece and place over the hinge with a 1-1/2" overhang on each side.

      I'm going to post a pic on the blog of the Z channel.

      Happy Camping! (even with a leak!)

      Leah

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