I have been battling with a couple of leaks that just won't quit! Upon reading about the air pressure leak testing that some dealerships will perform, I decided that since I couldn't get the trailer to a dealer, and with winter coming, (lots of rain) and me wanting to get the floor rot spots fixed, I would try to do something myself.
I don't have my new gaskets and weather stripping yet, so in order to minimize air loss through the windows, I sealed all the windows from the outside using packing tape. Not recommended if your AS is polished, unless you want to use some solvent to get the tape glue off after. Mine is not yet cleaned up so it wasn't an issue. I also sealed the rot holes in the floor inside, the fridge vent inlet in the floor, the hole around the water valves, the flange into the black water tank, etc. Any place that wasn't a potential leak spot, but where I would lose air.
Fridge vent inlet
Plumbing valves
Toilet flange
I used house wrap tape for sealing the inside. It will stick to anything dry, even if it is uneven.
So what could I use for pressurizing the trailer?
My electric leaf blower.
I have the stove vent fan out so I decided that this would make a great port to force air into the trailer.
Some more packing tape and plastic sealed the blower into the stove vent and also held it up there for the test.
I had no idea if I woudl get enough pressure to show anything but after turning it on and spraying some waster/dish soap solution on with a garden sprayer ... success....!
There were a couple more as well, so all in all I would call it a success.
One of the worst leaks I have is under the left corner of the big front window, and nothing in this test showed me where it is coming from, (I don't believe the bubble above would account for the amount of water getting in) but ... I watched while I was rinsing the soap off the trailer, and there was
no leak! This tells me that the tape I had to stop air loss around the gaskets was stopping the water. Sure enough, I removed the tape, and started getting water in! There must be some channel leaking inside the outer parts of the fame around the gasket. At least it narrows it down some. It is puzzling, though, because when it is leaking, there is no water getting into the bottom channel inside the window, so the gasket, as cracked as it is, is holding back water.
It got dark, so I can't look further until tomorrow.
I just thought I'd post my air pressure test method.
Like the old saying, "There is more than one way to skin a cat".
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