To change flooring in my RV, how do I get under the slide—overextend it?

Dear Dave,
I’m trying to either replace the carpet or put vinyl click flooring in my RV. How do I get under the slide? People say block the top outside and bring it in slow and the slide will lift off the floor. Others say to overextend the slide, but that sounds scary. Any suggestions? —James, 2000 Winnebago Adventurer 35U

Dear James,
We replaced the carpeting in a 2003 Winnebago Brave that had the couch and dinette slide room on the driver side, just like your floorplan.

Our Brave was also a 35-foot model. We took out the dinette and the sofa to replace them with a computer desk and new Bradd and Hall leather sofa sleeper.

The only way you can over-extend the slide room is to remove the surrounding trim—and I would not recommend that. We extended the slide room out, but not fully extended. Rather, we left about 4” so the trim did not seal against the sidewall and the room could be rocked a little. Your slide room mechanism is an HWH hydraulic with two rams that are attached to the outer-most part of the slide room.

Your Adventurer also has storage compartments that are attached to the underside of the slide room and come out with the room called “StoreMore”. We initially lifted the room with a pry bar and put a couple of 2×4 blocks underneath. We did a short section at a time.

After we tore out all the carpet and wrestled with the blocks, we used floor jacks that can be adjusted from 2’ to 4’. We bolted on 2×8 platforms covered in carpet and lifted the room enough to install the padded vinyl flooring. You can find the floor jacks on Amazon here.

A few tips when looking to replace the carpeting in your rig

The vinyl flooring in front of the kitchen is very hard to remove and leaves a lot of glue residue. We found Goo Gone was the best to remove all of it.

The carpet in the driver and passenger compartment is even harder to remove and impossible to get the adhesive off. We tried everything, including a heat gun, which just started fires. So we went with an underlayment of 1/8” paneling. I would recommend leaving the carpet there.

Same for the engine cover or doghouse, although we were able to use a heat gun and scraper to get to the original fiberglass. We then took it to an upholstery expert to cover it.

Carpet is very forgiving and hides all the edges, seams, and splices. We had to get creative using trim pieces such as quarter-round along the walls, and trim pieces at the driver/passenger compartment transition to the living room as there was a slight step down, and corner molding at the steps.

Here is the front edge of the slide room floor, which had carpet tucked over and stapled under. We used an L-shaped metal molding that had a wood print, which we found at a home improvement store.

We used a padded vinyl flooring from Infinity, which had to be glued to the floor due to the slide room resting on it. If you are going to use the snap-type flooring strips, you will want them to float but you do need to use a thicker product. If it is a wood laminate, go with the 7m thickness as it holds tighter at the seams and wears better when the room slides in and out.

 You might also enjoy this from Dave 

How much does it cost to replace an RV floor?

Dear Dave,
I live in my RV full-time, and my floors are becoming soft in certain areas. What is the cost to replace an RV floor? Is it expensive? I am retired and live on a fixed income, so I need to know how much approximately do you think it would cost? —Diana, 2017 Keystone Bullet

Read Dave’s answer.

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Dave Solberg is a leading expert in the RV industry and the author of the “RV Handbook.”

Read more from Dave here. 

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