[Nebster]

Richard,

Thanks for the quick reply with many thoughts. A few clarifications, if you will:

I have seen three major sources of water ingress in the slide rooms. First is the seam between the outer skin and the perimeter of the slide room. Because the skin is about 1/8 proud of the perimeter, it forms a little dam, and if there is the slightest crack, water will come in. Lots of water will come in. I know you said it was just sealed, but I would inspect it carefully.

I have never looked at this very closely, but I will when the rain stops. I will be checking this very carefully.

Second is that the top of the slide room bows down in the middle. Bows down so far that the seal does not actually seal when the room is deployed. This phemenon seems to be worse as the ceiling treatment becomes more elaborate. On the fancier treatments, aka later model coaches, all of the substrate is plywood and it is too heavy for the structure trying to hold it up. This problem is sort of tricky because you have to remove the valence to actually see the slide seal. Water runs under the seal, towards the valence, and then changes direction and runs into the ceiling of the slideout.

This bowing effect you describe makes me wonder if that is why I see a plastic "L clip" on the top of my slide in the center. It is on the slide near the valence, and it grabs the frame of the coach when the slide is full extended. Pretty hard, I'd say, because I can see where it puts a nice dent in the trim where it is designed to grab.

I have never noticed any bowing, but it might be because of that clip. Or it might be that my slide rooms are beefier or something.

I will say that I can see the slide seal when the slide is fully extended. In some parts I can see it because my valence curves outward far enough plus my ceiling trim in the middle of the coach is little enough that I can get my eyeballs up there and look. In the other parts, I have to put my endoscope up there and stick it in. Both of which I did today to assess this situation.

And, for better or worse, I can't see any spots along the seal where any water appears to be getting in. There isn't much surface past the sealing spot towards in the inside, but I didn't observe any moisture further in. That's not to say there isn't some -- and I did notice some leaves and other junk up there in the "track" where the seal seats, so those could be part of the problem.

One thing I DO notice is that, when I pull the slide back in with water atop it, the water quickly sluices into the valence and then makes a GIANT MESS everywhere very quickly. But with my "slow" overnight leak, all the water was back up in the cabinetry. None of it was accumulated in the valence area. I put my hand up in the valence, where it was possible, and it felt dry all along the whole way before I did the slide bringing-in.

The third, and I don't think this applies to what you described. For those of us with flanged windows, they have to be resealed from time to time or water seeps between the flange and the coach skin.

As it happens, I have the flush-mount windows. I had Newell replace all of my windows with vented ones when we bought the coach. Except they forgot to order one of them, so I had to replace it myself in the field later. This means I am rather intimately familiar with the window installation process on this coach.

The good news is that my one installation attempt seemed to go well. The bad news is that one of the windows Newell installed can leak just a little bit, but only when someone power-sprays the wall at the top. Something happened with the butyl tape seal there, and Newell is going to have to pull that window and reinstall it for me, under warranty, the next time I get back to the factory.

I don't know about small amount. I used a generous amount. Enough to form a nicely radiused filet between the skin and the roof. I also ran that filet down both the verticals.

So, do your slides not have additional seams on the top? You have mentioned "skin", which I assume is the vertical piece, and the "roof", which I think might be a part of the "perimeter" you described earlier. My slides have a bunch of seams in both directions on the top ("roof"?) of the slides. Not just at the very edges, I think.

Cheers!