The boat floor is arguably the most important part of your boat. If it rots, it can spread to the rest of the boat and create a terrible, dangerous mess. There are ways that you can repair a rotting boat floor, but doing so may make the problem worse if you don’t know how. Paying someone to repair the new problem can cost you a lot of money you may not have, leaving the repair up to you once again. The following article will share you with some of the common mistakes made in boat floor repair and how to avoid them. If you spot a rotting boat floor, you need to take action by scrubbing it down. The likely cause of the rotting is mold from the dampness of the boat, so the mold must be cleaned as thoroughly as possible to stop it from spreading to healthy flooring. After you have cleaned the area, you will want to remove all of the damaged wood. This will be very easy to do because it will literally be crumbling. You cannot repair the boat floor while rotten wood remains as it will only continue to rot.
Once you are confident that the rotten sections have been removed, you can start to repair the floor as needed. If you have the means and resources to remove a piece of the boat floor and replace it then that is the best thing you can do for the boat. Replacing a piece of rotting floor is the best course of action because there is no telling how bad the rotting is as it could have spread to other places not immediately visible; however, if you have no choice but to patch the rotten section, it is better to do so from under the floor (if possible). This creates a decent seal, but also prevents someone from tripping over the patch. If you cannot get under the floor to patch it, then after you clean the site, cover it with a material that is relatively thin. This is a mistake that many people make without even realizing they are doing it. A boat floor is not meant to have nails in it and doing so weakens the structure. It also creates spaces where water can get deeper into the boat, the floor, and other areas.
Even a gap as small as a nail head can wreak havoc on an otherwise healthy boat so when replacing flooring, avoid nailing altogether. If you have no other recourse, use wood putty and epoxy over the nails. Doing this simple additional task will save you a lot of time and money down the line, since the putty or epoxy will effectively cover the hole created by the head of the nail. The best thing you can do when fixing a boat floor is to use epoxy. You do need to make sure that you use an epoxy that is waterproof. Ones that come in two parts are also stronger and preferred. Keep in mind that they do make marine grade epoxy, which should always be your first choice.You can read a lot of glass boat repair manuals and never see anything on the self-repair of transoms.In boat repair circles it is a job for a professional yard-tear the old transom away and replace it. This is usually estimated at a cost somewhere between $2,000.00 and $5,000.00 or more depending on the size of the boat.
Who has that kind of money to spend on an old used boat? We sell a lot of product to people who decide to make the transom repair themselves, because for a lot of reasons our products are especially suited to this kind of work. There is no penetrating epoxy except CPES™ that has the ability to deeply penetrate bad wood areas, and almost all glass boat transoms have wood cores. You can see in the top picture what the typical cross section of a fiberglass transom looks like. It's a laminated ply structure and very subject to rot. Whatever original wood that remains must be treated with CPES™ to harden it and to eliminate the rot fungi. The thick epoxy resin you use for a partial fill must be simple to use, very slow-setting, strong and slightly flexible-which pretty much describes our Layup & Laminating Resin™. Epoxy fillers must be strong and able to bond with the CPES™ treated wood or resin, and be sandable. How does the water get into the transom?
Just look at the second picture of a standard outboard powered boat. I can count from this shot 25 separate glass penetrations in the below-water transom area. Think any of them leak?Just let a little water in, give it a bit of air and some heat, and you have potential rot. It is a slow, insidious process until a lot of wood is destroyed and the transom starts to flex and sag. do now but repair it. Of course, there's always the ad hoc lets-put-it-off solution, and the third picture shows you what a through-bolted piece of aluminum plate canDoesn't look too elegant, but it must work for this guy. You're lucky if you have a boat with an outboard-fewer holes and easier access (if you can consider anyone with a rotted out transom "lucky"). Many of the older, smaller boats have a metal or plastic channel pieceThis can be removed, which is important, as we'll see inBut take a look at the I/O boat transom below, with the through-hull units in place and with them removed.
Lots of torque on these brackets and plenty of bolts to leak, not to mention the other fittings. see by the close-up that inside a thin glass layer is an all wood laminate. It's difficult to repair a rotted I/O transom without removing the through-hull units, although it's do-able.At the end of the season in 1999, my boat convinced me that it neededIt said, "If you don't give me a new floor, I'm you through this one." So I said, "Okay, next spring. During the winter and early spring, I did I went to several websites and found that the ones that talked about repairing floors and like were basically shills for products. "Come to me," they our procedures, and buy our products here." I went to the newsgroup, rec.boats, where I However, I didn't learn much about putting floors Then I talked to my neighbor. about putting floors in boats. So here is what I did: 1. I ripped out the old floor. Some of it I had to cut out.
I was agonizing about how to get the last few inches around of the boat up when my neighbor suggested leaving that there and using as a support for the new floor. That turned out to be a great because it was so molded in with fiberglass that getting it out in any amount of time would have been next to impossible. I was done, the new floor was 5/8" higher than the old one.) 2. I measured the space carefully, then diagrammed the floor and still got it wrong, but that's a later part of the story. 3. I bought 3/4 inch pressure treated exterior plywood and cut it to fit the boat. I ended up having to do jigsaw pieces in allow an access panel for the fuel tank, which sits under the deck in center of the boat: One piece from behind the fuel tank to three pieces along the fuel tank--one on each side and the access and one piece from in front of the fuel tank to the prow. to fit wood for the stringers that had to be replaced or reinforced.
4. Once the pieces were cut, I soaked three coats of epoxy on each piece--bottom, top and sides. them to be thoroughly infiltrated with epoxy from all angles beforeBy the time I was done, I went through fourI am confident that no drop of water is going to in those pieces of wood. 5. I replaced and reinforced the then set the new floor in place, working from the back to the front of the boat. particular reason to work from the back to the front--it just seemed I screwed them down with deck screws. Seemed to make sense to me. I had to trim three piece nearest the prow, but when I started, I had decided to err on the of cutting the pieces too big, rather than too little. 6. Once the floor was screwed in place, I laid the fiberglass mat and resin and let it dry. 7. I covered the whole thing with that that was the best option for keeping our toes comfortable. would have been too hot; plastic sheeting too slippery;