Vinyl Window Repair
Some of the challenges of having an older PUP are unavoidable. Ugly décor, out dated lighting, aged canvas and vinyl windows. We’ve fixed the décor, changing the lighting to LED - a snap, but the canvas and windows…was a little intimidating. Fortunately for us our canvas was in great shape, it just needed a little cleaning and a fresh weatherproofing. The windows… that was a different story. We noticed every time we opened and closed them they were coming apart from the zipper. Vinyl expands when it’s hot, shrinks when it’s cold, and dries out over time. We have one large galley window that is the length of the box and on the corners it was coming apart.
I sent out messages on Pop Up Portal and messaged The Pop Up Princess and asked for advice. They had good ideas but they all consisted of removing the canvas and having the window replaced. Yikes! We hadn’t even taken our camper out yet and it looked like our camping budget was about to used on this window.
I began to look for alternative solutions. I went on Amazon and found a vinyl cement that the reviewers raved about. I sent off some questions, how does it do in heat, with stress, constant movement etc. People used it to replace convertible windows, on commercial bounce houses, and rafts. Everyone had nothing but great things to say about it. “Just follow the directions and it will work great!” they said.
We ordered it and my husband, wisely suggested we try it out on the smallest window first, just in case it completely ruined it. Following the directions we cleaned both sides of the window and the zipper fabric; ‘lightly’ sanded the vinyl to give the glue something to stick to then applied the glue to both the vinyl and the zipper fabric. Let it sit per instructions and then pressed them together and held it with clothes pins. We let it sit overnight just to be sure it had time to bond.
We came out the next day removed the clothes pins and my husband gingerly looked at it. Then my turn, I tried my best to pull it apart, I folded it, rolled it, pulled it, then left it in the sun and tried again. It did not budge! I figured I wanted to know how strong it was going to be before I put it on the big window. It had to hold up to the stress of that large window, to direct sunlight, and the folding up of the camper. Looked like it passed the test!
We put it on the large window and have had the camper out several times with no problems! We may eventually have to replace that window, but not any time soon! That makes for a couple of very happy campers!
This sould work very well if you have to patch any holes in your vinyl as well. They also sell vinyl window material on Amazon.
Here is the link to the vinyl cement we used. The shipping was free and it actually came faster than my Prime stuff did.
** My disclaimers:
*The odor is extremely strong, be sure to do this with the door and windows open, your area will need to be well ventilated for this stuff!
*Two sets of hands will do a better job. I did one portion of the large window alone; it didn’t turn out as pretty. One person to apply the glue the other to hold the material in place.
I am considering glueing snaps to the large window to help with the weight and closing of the window. If I do I'll update you on how it worked!
Have any questions or tried it on your windows, send us an email or leave a comment below!