@ Bobby, your wife does really good in translation. Just the last sentence goes different. The translation of what Bubbla said means "Even if you DONīT find soft spots, it is recommended to treat the floor with epoxy seal"
@ Alex: Thanks a lot for your advice! The floor just has one soft spot of about 10 x 10 cm, which is at the edge. I already have sticked the screwdriver in it and made a "hole" there. The rest of the floor is in rather good condition except for a few places, which are wet (the trailer has been 10 hours in heavy rain during the drive from Germany to my home. I plan to cut the part with the hole and replace it by a new part. I am aware that it has to sit on the edges.
Bobby, no, we do not have termites in Austria. Fortunately we do not have any insects, that like wood, except the "Borkenkaefer" (= bark beetle), which only likes the forest ... But maybe it could be, that termites have been imported together with the trailer but temperatures of below 0 degrees celsius and snow should not be a nice environment for them (I hope). Actually I never have seen termites before.
Currently I have a heater inside the trailer and am drying the floor.
I already have some ideas, where the damp could have come in, like in the rear, where the water heater is situated, it seems to be not completey sealed so moistness can come in from the outside, which probably was the case when I brought the trailer from Germany to Austria, beeing 10 hours on the road in continuously heavy rain.
The dealer told me, that the water heater itself is pretty new. Maybe the previous owner has not replaced the old sealing when having changed the heater, I suppose. So I will seal that whole thing.
Hallo Hans,
First sorry to all you guys about me writyng in German, but I thought let's give them something to do Sorry about that, maybe not realy polite.
Hans, if the spot is only 10X10 cm don't cut it out!! Seal it with Dr.Rot epoxy or simular. Take the carpet out, and dry the spot with some kind of heater. Drill few 5 mm holes about 15 mm deep and soke it. When done, seal the whole floor. In our climat it is realy important to do this, or you will replace the whole thing sunner then you thing. As I said before, my floor lasted only five years by brand new MH.
Gave the 1979 safari back to the dealer, and bought a 1992 Sovereign. Here it is:
Thanks everybody for the great advice, but the more I inspected the trailer, the more troubles became obvious. The floor was much more destroyed than it looked like at the first inspection. And then other problems arised, so I gave up and the trailer was driven back to the German dealer. He kept some amount of the money I paid, of course, but it still was worth it to give the Safari back, since I would have had too much money to invest.
But: We found a 1992 Sovereign, an original Europe edition of Airstream, in an incredibly good condition in Germany. We bought this trailer from a private person, and everything is just great, the floor, the interieur, and everything. Under bad wheather conditions (minus 16 degrees celsius) we brought the trailer to our home. So here is my new silver baby ...
Austrian police said welcome to my Sovereign with a small fee :)
When I brought our new Sovereign from Germany to Austria, the Austrian police did not really like, that a car with an austrian licence plate tows a trailer with a german plate. And although Germany and Austria are in the European Union, this still is not legal. So I had to pay the small police fee of 21 Euro (equals around 21 US Dollars) and was allowed to travel home ... Here is the documentation of this nice case. It was nice indeed, because if the policeman would have insisted he could forbid me to travel further and try to get other licence plates, which would take several days and a lot of troubles and time. But the policeman was really impressed by such an "unusual trailer" which was good for me.
Hans- best of luck with the new silver baby...you are lucky you got out of the other one as it might have had a lot more than floor problems! Enjoy your Airstream, it is good to hear that these American icons are loved in Europe as well.
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but temperatures of below 0 degrees celsius and snow should not be a nice environment for them (I hope). Actually I never have seen termites before.
Gave the 1979 safari back to the dealer, and bought a 1992 Sovereign. Here it is:
Glad it worked out okay!
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