This week’s newsletter is not called Designing. That has been postponed, as it became apparent more things needed fixing. Here’s a picture of the outside of the caravan. Pay close attention to the middle band of brown.
We siliconed the roof joins with top rate silicon, real nice stuff that we can paint over later. But for the inside, we thought well, no one’s going to see this side, it’s just the second defense, let’s bung some cheap stuff on and call it a day.
Turns out the cheap stuff still has a data sheet that we should have read, and it would have told us “do not use on bituminous surfaces”. So the clear goop made goop of the black tar down one side. The other side got other cheaper silicon, that might have been just a little bit beyond it’s shelf life. It didn’t react with the tar tape. It didn’t react at all. it stayed pasty right through until I wiped it off again. A lesson learned, and we siliconed the inside with the more expensive and reliable stuff.
We have had on and off rain all week. The roof has worked splendidly - the walls, to our great surprise, have not worked so well.
The rain ran appropriately off the roof, into the railing for the awning, down the wall, up into the join between the white and brown sections, through the join then down the inside of the wall. So that had to be siliconed as well.
Still a good week overall, we continue to make progress and if no other things come up, next week will be called Designing.
The Grace of God be with you all,
Giles.