Stinky floor

[PhilMateo]

This week I gutted my 65 Overlander, pulled up carpet, and removed old tile flooring.

Now, there is a nasty, chemical smell in cabin. Not the normal poop or pee smells associated with blackwater tanks.

Anyone else experience this?

[eljay]

Yep. It's the glue used for the tiles, I believe. Nasty smell. I haven't completely ridded my trailer of it yet. Would almost make an entire floor replacement desirable, eh?

[Jim & Susan]

Had a similar smell in mine. Once the floor came out, the smell went away. I wondered what caused it. I had weird visions of the PO using it the deep dark woods as a meth lab or something!

[mtnman]

We got the same thing in ours. Wife said she was going to put down baking soda on the floor for a few days and then remove it before we put down the new flooring.
mtnman

[dwightdi]

We have used Kilns brand sealer on plywood floors of my rental houses to seal in odors from pets and fires. It works good for that.

[PhilMateo]

So I need to sand off remaining glue, and prime with Kilz.

Let me ask, should I seal the floor with some sort of water proofing instead?

[squrlgurl]

We had the usual bathroom smells when we found rotten wood under the bathroom vanity of our 63 Overlander. When we pulled up the original tiles there was a weird smell from the glue too. We sanded the portion of the floor that we didn't replace and sealed it with West System epoxy and now the smell is gone. It has the added function of waterproofing the floor too.

[65CV]

With amount of floor rot discussed on this forum and the work involved in replacing it, I was thinking about coating our floor with West Systems as well.

Has anyone used West or something like it over wide areas and given it a real road test? I'm concerned about cracking as the trailer flexes.

63GT

[squrlgurl]

Originally Posted by 63GT

With amount of floor rot discussed on this forum and the work involved in replacing it, I was thinking about coating our floor with West Systems as well.

Has anyone used West or something like it over wide areas and given it a real road test? I'm concerned about cracking as the trailer flexes.

63GT

We use it in repairing old wooden boats, which flex quite a bit, and have always been happy with it's performance. Haven't got our trailer on the road yet, so I don't have any road-tested results to share. However, my husband made a repair to the fender of his "beater" work truck and basically built a new 1 foot by 3 inch section of the edge of the wheel well with West System and fiberglass cloth. Now, by no means is this a professional job, but it is faired nicely and smooth. He goes off-road with the truck and into rugged bouncy areas and over the 3 years he has had the epoxy repair in place it has not cracked or shifted at all.

[65CV]

squrlgurl -

You hit the nail on the head -- "glassing it in".

I've always used it on boats with some glass reinforcement involved and always have a supply on hand. I've never used it on plain plywood though.

We were lucky to find a 63 globetrotter with a good floor, but I'd like to keep it that way before we replace the flooring.

[squrlgurl]

Originally Posted by 63GT

squrlgurl -

You hit the nail on the head -- "glassing it in".

I've always used it on boats with some glass reinforcement involved and always have a supply on hand. I've never used it on plain plywood though.

We were lucky to find a 63 globetrotter with a good floor, but I'd like to keep it that way before we replace the flooring.

Yeah us too. We only had one very small section of floor that was rotten. We're going to get some use out of the trailer before doing a total cosmetic resto on it one day when we the cows come home.

After we sanded the nasty glue chunks away we applied the first coat of West System. It soaked in pretty good and we had to put on a second coat after giving the first a light scuff sanding.

As a side note, we used Super Strength oil-based Kilz paint in our house to cover up an area where a cat had peed on the carpet that soaked down into the plywood subfloor. Coat after coat of it and it just smelled faintly like cat pee and Kilz and eventually took on a stench all it's own.
We left it on (with plans to remove the whole floor anyway), but over about a month it wore off from just light foot traffic (it was in a corner). I know Kilz works great on walls but would be hesitant to use it on floors. Unless there is a specific Kilz product for floors, that is. That is the reason we decided to use epoxy over Kilz on our trailer floor. Who wants to be tearing the floor out if the smell returns?