The Dreaded Wood Rot

From what I have read, many of the vintage travel trailers have some wood rot in the corners and around the vent.  Dottie was no exception.  She had wood root in the rear left hand corner and above the vent.  We have just tackled the wood rot in the corner.

Wow, was I shocked!!!  I just thought we would be dealing with some soft wood, and I knew it would need to be replaced, but I had no idea the wood in the corner had crumbled to nothing but slivers of wood.

 Here you can see on the rear paneling signs of water damage, but look what was behind the other panel that looked about the same.  You can't really see it from this picture, but there was a board that was right up in the corner, it was completely gone.  Nothing left but slivers of wood. That is what the two horizontal 1x2's used to be connected to.  You can also see that the bottom half of the vertical 1x2 was also completely rotted into slivers as well

If you suspect any wood rot at all, soft paneling on the out side is a good indication,  don't be fooled into thinking it is fine.  I would have never guessed that one of the key pieces of wood that support  our frame was completely gone.

There was also some wood rot on the rear wall in the corner as well so we replaced all the wood there too. I wish I had taken photo's of that side too, but pretty much was identical to the wall pictured above.

The wood behind the rest of the paneling looked like it was put in yesterday.