New to the Forum

[TBALINFL]

Hi! I'm not a current owner but hoping to be one soon. I was considering buying an old fiberglass to redo to customize for living purposes for a long cross country multi-month trip. I've seen a couple of the of the re-do projects shared on here and would so love to do the same. Found one I liked but nervous about the repairs since it has quite a bit of water damage in the interior. Would like to get some feedback from others who have done the same, warnings, costs, regrets.... I'm trying to put together a projected budget but I'm a first timer and afraid I'll get buried in the unexpected.

Thanks in advance!

[Donna D.]

Hi Trisha. This can be a major undertaking. Everything from rotten floors to total replacement of frames and axles. Ask your questions and we can give you answers...

[papa-t]

Welcome Trisha

[Pam Garlow]

Why don't you post some photos of the one you are considering, and maybe others can give you advise about it. Donna is right, that repairing a rotted floor can be a big undertaking.
But for the most part, these little trailers are pretty hardy.
I paid more for mine (in the $4K range) and got one with everything already fixed, so all I had to do was a few upgrades and customizing for me.

[Bob Miller]

Hi and Welcome to the group.

Basically, unless you can do about 90% of the labor yourself, "Fixers" usually don't work out economically. Having to pay for RV labor is a real killer, both because it is expensive and also, you may fall victim to having unnecessary work done on your dime.

In short.... Buy the very best condition you can afford. Put a lot of that repair budget into the purchase budget and it usually comes out a better deal.

Gotta tell ya.... There are a lot of projects that never got finished out there for good reason. If this is your first adventure, don't start out with a death march.

Good Luck

[Carol H]

Originally Posted by TBALINFL

Found one I liked but nervous about the repairs since it has quite a bit of water damage in the interior. Would like to get some feedback from others who have done the same, warnings, costs, regrets.... I'm trying to put together a projected budget but I'm a first timer and afraid I'll get buried in the unexpected.

Thanks in advance!

I do most of the repairs & updates on my own trailer but to be honest I would not touch a trailer with water damage - in particular if it involves the floor.... that would be way to big a job for me.

As Bob suggests it is pretty common here to see someone new to these little trailers purchase one that needs repairs and they get as far as pulling it all apart to get to the problem areas only to sell it shortly after as a gutted out project...

[TBALINFL]

Thanks everyone for the advice! It looks like the one I was interested in sold which is probably a good thing. The water damage looked substantial to me and I did find a repairman who was very helpful. He had warned me to be particularly careful when the water damage starts from the roof because its got a lot more distance it can spread and you don't know until you get behind the walls. I would say I'm relatively handy when it comes to doing projects in the house and even done some woodworking projects but the idea of tackling the wood and how its adjoined to the fiberglass makes me nervous. So... I'll keep searching and learning from all the posts here. Thanks again for all the thoughtful advice!

[Carol H]

Trisha the advise regarding behind the walls is a good one if you are looking at what we here call stick built trailers - they have wood behind the walls but not so much the fiberglass trailers of the type we have here. There is often nothing on the walls that gets damaged by water and if there is something on the walls the water often just runs behind it and down onto the floor where the real problems/big repair jobs can be. If you are looking at fiberglass trailers be sure to open up all the hatches and cupboards and look for signs of water leaks. Look under the trailer looking for large discolouration on the underside if the trailer does not have a full fiberglass bottom. If the floor has water damage you pretty well need to gut the trailer out in order to fix it.