Fixing Trailer Vents and Waterproofing your Outside Vents

I had some leaks in my trailer this year when I went to take it Easter camping. I went and asked at a trailer repair place what I should use to fix my trailer window, light and vent leaks. At the one store I went to in our small town, they suggested a caulk gun with liquid caulk. I haven't had much luck with that in my bathrooms and other wet areas so I decided I would go to a bigger city to a store that actually just does trailers and replair. 
 
I went and spoke to the repair men and they told me that there is a sticky tape that is like blue fun tack you use on the wall to hang posters. It comes in a coil and is used for any item that is on the outside of the trailer. It is what they use on windows, lights, vents, outlets etc. 

I started working on fixing them and here is my post about the vents. I did a little video which you can link to here.Link to my video about "fixing" and waterproofing my trailer vents.  


My biggest suggestion about this is check in them for hornets nests. Two weeks ago, I cleaned two nests out in each exhausts vent. One had burnt nets in it which you can see in this photo. When I went to actually take them off the trailer, there was already a new nest started with live hornets in it! You can see him looking at me in this photo to the right. You can spray poison in there or I just carefully took it out and dropped it and ran away. To keep them from starting again in there, I put a coating of coconut oil in the center to keep it slick so they won't stick inside.

You start by taking off the screws that hold the vent onto the trailer. You may have to insert a flat putty knife in there to pop off the old putty. One came off very easily and the other took some tugging. you can see that the trailer has been leaking for some time as the wood under the vent is water damaged. I am glad that I took the time to figure out how to fix it now so that I can have it done for the next 20 years. Hopefully it will last a good long time. 

Once you get the vent off, you need to clean the putty from off the outside of the trailer and the backside of the vent. I just used my finger nail for the most part as anything sharp may scratch your paint job. I used paper towel with rubbing alcohol on it to clean the area and make sure the surface of both the trailer side and the backside of the vent were really clean of anything that would keep the vent from being secure with the putty. 

There was some rust on the side of the pipe and instead of sanding it down and painting it, I just rubbed it down with some oil inside and out to keep it from rusting further. Obviously you wouldn't do that if you were going to use the vents right away as you wouldn't want it to catch fire but letting it sit for a few days will keep it from any hazard and when I say rubbed it down, I didn't leave any on the pipe. I rubbed it in and then wiped it clean. 

Then, you take the coil sticky putty and press a layer on the inside of your vent where it would touch the outside of your trailer. Since my trailer isn't a flat sided trailer, you can see I had to put on several layers to fill in the ridges where my trailer goes indented. It isn't hard to do. You just stick the putty to the metal, remove the plastic/paper covering and put on another layer. Once you have that stuck to the vent, you line up the screws to the holes in the outside of the trailer. I threaded them all just a little and then screwed them all a few turns rotating through the screws so as not to mis-thread or over tighten any one screw.

Once the screws are threaded, continue tightening until it is fully tight. By this point, hopefully the putty is firmly tight against the trailer. If there are gaps or spaces, pull off a little putty and fill in the gaps. You can trim down the extra putty if you want by using a flat, dull knife. Be careful not to scratch the paint on your trailer or cut through the siding if you are doing this. In this picture on the right, you can see that I trimmed the one on the right but hadn't trimmed the one on the left. 

I have been working on it for weeks now but we seem to have rain on the days I have free to work on it. This last Saturday was the first time in years that I didn't have a child home and I spent the entire day working on the trailer and was only able to get one side done minus the windows. I did finish all the lights and will post on how I did those as well. It is time consuming and once I get the windows finished, I want to wax the entire thing and re paint the bumper and tongue/hitch with the hammered paint. I will keep you posted on what is going on just in case you want to do your own sometime!