Slats and Holes

Another modification.. here we go again we hear you say but this one hasn’t only come from us, a few of our followers have inboxed us with the same problem …. damp cushions and seating storage.

We became aware of it on our last two trips away, when packing up the bed we’d noticed the underside of the cushions were damp, along with the boarding on the base.  

We’ve had Pod nearly a year now, this was a new experience for us and then we were contacted by a few followers with the same problem. It didn’t seem to matter which end you slept at, it still happened and it appeared to be wherever the upper body was.
We sleep head under window and feet towards the door. 

This niggle wasn’t unexpected really, confined space with two people in it, it was expected and then we just wanted to try and think of a way of dealing with it so thinking caps went on and we came up with this. Slats and holes.. read on.

First off we considered improving the ventilation in the base so the only way to do this was to make holes by drilling them. Our main problem area was under the window and on the small plywood section which fits immediately next to it on the small recesses.

Our thoughts then moved onto the lower section which was fitted with the table. Now many of you know we don’t use the table as we keep Pod made up as a bed and live in the awning. So this kind of makes the table redundant and our thoughts moved to slats.

Slats are used in many caravans as bed bases so we began looking at the space left by the table and saw it lent itself to slats being a possibility.

After a trip to B&Q we returned with wood and webbing and dug out a few staple nails we had in the shed. After measuring and tweaking we found what we believe to be the right proportions and cut the wood to fit the lip the table sat on, it was looking really good.

Next came the holes in the small plywood section, nervous is an understatement but we were confident it would be okay and after 10 holes had been drilled we gave a sigh of relief and big grins appeared too. All looking good so far.

Once we put the two together in Pod we had a rethink.. what about getting rid of the small plywood section and making it all slats. In for a penny in for a pound.

Now, the only problem with this is the plywood section is thinner than the table section so there is a further drop of the lip for the lower slats than the the ones that would replace the plywood.

Fortunate for us we’d saved wood from a project that didn’t happen and it was all of the same width but half the depth of our new slats, perfect. These were cut to size and all were then nailed with the webbing to provide a perfect slatted bed base.

This is for if you are replacing the plywood along with the table.

The wood is of different thicknesses due to the plywood and table sitting at different depths.

You need 4 of these cut to 620mm. These replace the space left by the table. We got the measurement from the table. Not the gap because the gap for piece 1 to 4 is different by few mills. Doing it this way the wood nearer the foot of the bed/door fit slightly tighter than those at the top. They all sit nicely on the lip and didn’t move at all. 

You could if you wanted a snug fit in all areas mark and measure where each piece would sit and cut to size.

The top two pieces of wood which replace the plywood are of the same dimensions as in theothers but 10mm X 94mm and they were also cut to 620mm.

We then measured the length of the space that needed filling and lay the wood on the floor evenly spacing them, leaving a gap at the top but not at the bottom.

The webbing we nailed/stapled it into space, leaving a little slack between each piece because the wood expands/contracts.

Small note.. The two that replace the plywood insert are flush with the cabinets, the other four are a couple of mills lower/not flush.

You could buy wood a few mills thicker but we haven’t noticed a dip on what we created.
Just comfy, stable, solid sleeping ..  

All that was left to do was to solve the damp problem on the base section under the window. You’ve guessed it, more holes. With a little more confidence than before a few more holes were made.

Now it was time to give it a test run. This was done using various ‘testing’ methods and it appeared to hold up well. Also the wood we used was at least three times the width of the standard slats provided with modern day caravans so we didn’t really envisage any problems, we had in fact slightly over engineered the idea. The real test would come on our next trip away at Hawes, Yorkshire.

Hawes went well, slats worked ! They didn’t move, nice solid base. No bruised bottoms or broken slats, so for now they are a goer. They’ve made life a lot easier and Pod now carrys even less weight. The damp bed panels and cushions seem to no longer be an issue, (check out our video on YouTube) when it came to dismantling the bed and checking the afore mentioned items they were bone dry. The front window still had condensation on it but that’s expected to a certain extent and is easily rectified by giving it a quick wipe first thing in the morning.

For now the table and plywood section are stored in the spare bedroom, they may make a reappearance time will tell, but we had to give this a go, didn’t we.