All right, it's been a few weeks of lousy weather up here, but I found a little time to be out in the R-pod and noted that the springy floor in front of the fridge should be investigated. I suspected that water was at the root of the problem, plus, the water I had found in the storage compartment last year troubled me a bit. So I removed all the rear bed platform (not vertical supports) and found the floor was springy in the area under the bed.
I decide to make an exploratory cut in the vinyl floor and my suspicions were confirmed. It's wet, all the subfloor is damp, which leads to delamination of the plywood. In an effort to find dry subfloor I have removed the vinyl floor all the way form the very back to the front entry. The subfloor is still damp but, I'm going to pause the cutting here, for reasons...
My conclusion, it is poor construction practice to be so confident of your building envelope's water tightness to not allow a way for water to exit; this is part of the "soggy Condo" saga that has been prevalent in Canada for a while.
Anyway, here are some pictures of the back area of RP171 with the vinyl floor removed, the plywood veneer actually looks pretty nice.
https://flic.kr/p/2j3m7fY"> https://flic.kr/p/2j3m7fY - IMG_1631 by https://www.flickr.com/photos/saint_urho/ - robert , on Flickr
https://flic.kr/p/2j3m6Tf"> https://flic.kr/p/2j3m6Tf - IMG_1630 by https://www.flickr.com/photos/saint_urho/ - robert , on Flickr
https://flic.kr/p/2j3jyRg"> https://flic.kr/p/2j3jyRg - IMG_1632 by https://www.flickr.com/photos/saint_urho/ - robert , on Flickr
https://flic.kr/p/2j3m757"> https://flic.kr/p/2j3m757 - IMG_1640 by https://www.flickr.com/photos/saint_urho/ - robert , on Flickr
Now, the reasons I alluded to earlier; how rusty are your fasteners? I pulled some staples (above) from areas that were obviously getting wet most frequently and they were very rusty; as we move further from the wet areas, the staples are only rusty in the exposed area.. the part of the staple that was in the dry(ish) hardwood is shiny.
So, the screws in the photo below, show a rusty screw in the known wet area and not very rusty screw in the suspected dry area. So, go check your screws.. are they rusty? Your floor is probably wet.
https://flic.kr/p/2j3m7cB"> https://flic.kr/p/2j3m7cB - IMG_1633 by https://www.flickr.com/photos/saint_urho/ - robert , on Flickr
https://flic.kr/p/2j3gVyB"> https://flic.kr/p/2j3gVyB - IMG_1634 by https://www.flickr.com/photos/saint_urho/ - robert , on Flickr
https://flic.kr/p/2j3m77b"> https://flic.kr/p/2j3m77b - IMG_1635 by https://www.flickr.com/photos/saint_urho/ - robert , on Flickr
The vertical support nears the shower (edit, not the shower, this is power in near the sink) enclosure shows some evidence of being damp once. There is very little evidence of wet walls.
https://flic.kr/p/2j3m6ZH"> https://flic.kr/p/2j3m6ZH - IMG_1647 by https://www.flickr.com/photos/saint_urho/ - robert , on Flickr
I can hear y'all asking, "but Saint, how does the water get in?" It appears to me it's blowing right through the garage doors (see above). Maybe a little bit around too.
The problem isn't just that water gets in, the real problem is you can't get the water out. Frustrating that $200 of aluminum flashing, and an upgrade to marine grade plywood during construction would make these floors considerably more waterproof.
The adventure continues.
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