Waterproofing

I’d had the feeling things weren’t exactly watertight, but having gutted the inside allowed me to see just how waterproof the windows were. Or rather, weren’t.

While I was glumly contemplating the waterfall inside my future bedroom, this little fellow skittered by.

He began running over one of the metal struts between the ribs. You can see the bottom of the window is also leaking given the water coming in behind him. I wonder how much of the rust on the ribs was from the leaky windows.

The picture is blurry, but he stretched out to take a delicate sip from a water droplet which was cool to watch.

Whenever I found a defenseless looking bug I’d bring him it as dinner. I ordered a math book online which arrived full of ants (for some reason) so I fed him those, too.

After the rain passed I took a closer look at the outside of the windows.

Garrett had a caulk gun I could borrow, so I went and bought some black caulk that would hopefully blend in. In retrospect, something like Kwik Seal might have been better? This worked ok for the most part, though. The main risk was that if I missed something in my first pass, the second layer might not stick to the previous layer too well.

In retrospect I really wish I’d have masked off the side windows before caulking. It was a lot messier than I’d expected and far more difficult to get off than I had imagined.

The next time it rained I made sure to peep the windows and see if I’d managed to seal things up and things were already much improved.

It was always extremely cozy inside the van when it rained. You could hear the rain on the roof super well.

I had been worried things might not be super water tight, but I had not expected this level of permeability…I was now glad I’d opted to gut the inside. Since I have no sense of smell, if something started musting/molding, I’d have no way to detect that I myself now also smelled like a moldly closet.