RV builder claims automation virtually eliminates window leaks

If you've been an RVer for much time, you know that leaks are the bane of your rig. Roof leaks are one thing, but one that seems to haunt all of us are leaks that spring from windows. Water can slide its way past seals and infiltrate the sidewalls of our rigs and the prognosis from there is usually ugly.

What's the problem with window seals? It often comes down to the human equation. When a window is installed on a production line, two types of sealant are used. First the window edges are dressed all around with what RVers commonly call "putty tape," a sticky flat tape that sandwiches between the window flange and the RV's sidewall. Since most RV windows have not square corners, but rather, "radius curves" it's really difficult to put the tape on evenly when making a corner. Gaps can occur.

To help backstop the integrity (or lack of it) of the tape, after installing the window, the manufacturer will typically add a bead of some sort of sealant all around the window on the outside edge. This too, is done "by hand," and with that old imperfect human hand doing the job, the sealant may not always go on in a uniform way.

Fast forward to the real world of bumps, jarring, and extremes of temperature on the road. The inner seal twixt window and sidewall, and that "band aid" approach with the outer seal. A little flexing here, a bit of expansion there, a nice rainstorm, and sure enough, water infiltration – an RV's worst enemy – has come.

So we read with interest a news release from Open Range RV, a fifth wheel and travel trailer manufacturer out of Indiana, says it has the answer to leaky window seals: Remove the human hand and automate it. Using a "semi-robotic" seal system built by Dicor Corporation, instead of putty tape, a mechanized system applies a hot melt sealant with a robotic arm. Once the window is in place, the need for that secondary, outside "cap seal" is eliminated.

Open Range officials maintain that their new sealing system, "showed consistent, near perfect test results over the course of hundreds of windows a day." It adds they'll be using the same system to put sealant around entry doors and hatches.

If the system works out, you can be sure other RV builders will be looking to Dicor to acquire and use the same system. For the rest of us end uses, however, we'll still have to rely on those human hands, either our own, or those of the local RV shop, when it comes to renewing seals.