How to Check a Touring Caravan for Damp
Where damp actually starts, what a damp meter reading means in practice, and the checks worth doing before you view or buy.
Damp is the single biggest condition issue in touring caravans and older motorhomes, because most have timber-framed bodies — once water gets past a seal, it's absorbed rather than simply draining away. Caught early, it's a straightforward repair. Left for years, it can mean replacing structural panels.
Where it actually starts
Almost all damp begins at a seal, not in the middle of a wall. The usual entry points are window and rooflight seals, the seams around locker hatches and the entrance door frame, roof vents and satellite/solar panel mounts, and the skirt seam where the floor meets the bodywork. Anywhere something has been screwed, bolted or sealed onto the shell is a point worth checking.
What a damp meter reading means
A pin or pinless damp meter gives a percentage reading, not a yes/no answer. As a rough guide, readings under 20% are generally considered normal background moisture, 20–30% suggests moisture worth investigating further, and readings above 30% point to a genuine problem. What matters as much as the number is where it's taken from and how it compares to a reading from an unaffected panel on the same caravan — a single high reading at a window corner is a very different situation to high readings spread across a whole wall.
Signs you can check without a meter
- A musty smell, especially in a caravan that's been closed up for a while
- Soft or slightly spongy flooring, particularly near the entrance step
- Discoloured or bubbling wallpaper/laminate around windows or lockers
- Black mould spots in corners, behind curtains, or inside wardrobes
- Panels that look very slightly bowed rather than perfectly flat
A note on decals and wraps
Large exterior decals or full vinyl wraps can hide early-stage bodywork damp and damage from a quick visual check, since they cover the panel seams a problem would normally show through first. It's not a reason to avoid a wrapped caravan, but it is a reason to lean more on a damp meter reading than on how the panels look.
Every caravan and motorhome we take into stock is checked over before it's listed — see our About page for how we approach condition and preparation.
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