Broken bunk

[riverchick247]

Hello all, I have a 2016 Chaparral 371mbrb I bought new in 2017. I have brain cancer and have been living in it full time with my kids next door to my mom. Last night, I climbed up on the top bunk in the middle bunk room to put my 5 year old daughter's clothes away. The bunk collapsed and slid down the wall on one side. While I've gained a little weight thanks to the Covid closures, I'm 160lbs and the amount of toys she had up there combined with the small load of clothes I was putting away might have weighed an accumulative 40lbs at the most. Going to my local dealer is 100% out as they're a bunch of scumbags and the thought of moving it gives me anxiety for all the things we have that would need to be packed up and put somewhere. My daughter has always slept on the bottom bunk and we've used the top bunk as a play platform. We absolutely need that platform for her toys, does anyone have any experience repairing one of these themselves? Between myself and my 16 year old, we're pretty handy and could probably get something rigged up. Just curious if anyone has ever dealt with this issue and how they went about getting it done. Any advice will be greatly appreciated, thanks!

 

[Neal]

Hello @riverchick247 and welcome to RVForums. I don't have any experience with that type of system, maybe others here do and will chime in when they read your post. Have you looked to see if there are any RV mobile repair techs that service your location? They seem to be pretty good with these types of things.

 

[riverchick247]

Hello @riverchick247 and welcome to RVForums. I don't have any experience with that type of system, maybe others here do and will chime in when they read your post. Have you looked to see if there are any RV mobile repair techs that service your location? They seem to be pretty good with these types of things.

We have 2 mobile techs, one of which is a thief and the other is swamped with emergencies from heavy rains so it looks like we're on our own for a while. Hooray for hurricane season lol

 

[RandyB]

Could you remove the plywood and take some photos of the framing that has collapsed? There are a lot of handy people on this forum to give advice, but we need a little more to go on and what you’re dealing with.

 

[TJ&LadyDi]

First, welcome to RVF, @riverchick247 and very sorry that you have all these issues going on in your life.

As @RandyB noted, it would help to see the mounting area under the plywood. From the photo, it looks like the right side mounting is still in place, so the left side is the major issue. If we could see how the platform was originally supported, we could make some suggestions.

I do think this could be a relatively simple fix, but might not be cosmetically perfect.

TJ

 

[riverchick247]

Could you remove the plywood and take some photos of the framing that has collapsed? There are a lot of handy people on this forum to give advice, but we need a little more to go on and what you’re dealing with.

Sure thing, give me a couple of minutes and I'll get a couple taken

 

[BGMAC]

It shows your in the Southeast. Where are you located?

 

[riverchick247]

It shows your in the Southeast. Where are you located?

South Carolina

 

[BGMAC]

Ok, If you were closer I would come by and fix it, but I can try and tell you? Under the plywood is a frame that is mounted on each wall. It looks like the 2x4 or 2x3 came loose on the left wall.
If you take that piece of plywood off you may see the piece of framing. It needs to be reattached to the wall and the cross members attached to it.

 

[BGMAC]

If you were closer I would come over and fix it for you, but it looks like the piece frame came loose that attaches to the wall. Reattaching that piece wooden frame to the wall and then reattaching the cross members to that wall piece should do it. You may need to add some metal angle brackets to the frame corners so it would not come loose again.

 

[riverchick247]

 

[riverchick247]

As it turns out, I can't actually remove the plywood myself. I was however able to get a couple shots of the frame, I may end up calling my moms handy man cousin to see if he can help get it reassembled. I find it rather disturbing that Forest River slapped a pretty high weight limit on these bunks but only secured them to the walls with two screws on each corner and built the frame from 2x3s. 50 thousand freaking dollars and this is what I get

 

[TJ&LadyDi]

I think getting some help is a good idea. The plywood needs to come off the framework in order to do a proper fix.

Once the framework has been put back in place, you might consider installing snug-fitting vertical pieces of 1x4 between the upper and lower platforms and the lower platform to the floor. That will transfer the weight down to the floor, eliminating the chance of a reoccurrence. If painted to match the surrounding area, it should not look bad.

TJ

 

[Kevin D Pem]

You could use corner posts on under side to support the frame like a real bunk. It looks to me to be a slide and that limits the corner posts location. I would rebuild the frame using deck screws as it is only built using staples. I would not trust the screws that were used to hold it to the wall to be in any kind of structure. With that thought the screws should not support only hold the bunk from moving to and fro.

 

[riverchick247]

Thanks y'all for all of the advice, its very much appreciated! I considered taking the lower bunk out and replacing it with a short twin then building a freestanding platform for my daughter's play space but....that would take far more time and patience than I'm equipped with lol. I'll update here once we get all squared away here

 

[BGMAC]

As it turns out, I can't actually remove the plywood myself. I was however able to get a couple shots of the frame, I may end up calling my moms handy man cousin to see if he can help get it reassembled. I find it rather disturbing that Forest River slapped a pretty high weight limit on these bunks but only secured them to the walls with two screws on each corner and built the frame from 2x3s. 50 thousand freaking dollars and this is what I get

With a tight fit and more than 2 screws holding it in it should hold. I would have a screw on each side of the cross member. I would also use l brackets to hold the front cross member to the side studs.

 

[RandyB]

Once the framework has been put back in place, you might consider installing snug-fitting vertical pieces of 1x4 between the upper and lower platforms and the lower platform to the floor. That will transfer the weight down to the floor, eliminating the chance of a reoccurrence. If painted to match the surrounding area, it should not look bad.

Exactly right to support the load and transfer it directly to the floor as @TJ&LadyDi has suggested.
This job will require some skills of screwing, cutting and a little backyard engineering. A handyman might be the right ticket.

 

[riverchick247]

I'm so thankful for yalls advice, my moms cousin got my daughter's bunk put back together in no time today. He took measurements to build a steel removable support to transfer some weight to the floor too...but it may be a while still before that gets done. Either way, her bunk feels more solid now than it did the day we parked it

 

[TJ&LadyDi]

Glad to hear it worked out well. Your daughter's beautiful smile says it all!

TJ