Yeah, luan seems to be a favorite component with these jokers. It appears to be what my headliner is glued to, and although it has been used under floors for decades, it has never been adequate for any of the flooring manufacturers to warranty their product when luan (aka - lauan) is used under it. So I guess it makes sense that an industry dedicated to preventing regulation or any kind of real standards would love it, but I digress.
Straight luan is rather generic, but basically, it's all crap, and the glues used to hold it all together are definitely not capable of dealing with moisture. So whether they've used it by itself as a substrate, or employed it as part of some kind of Frankenstein composite panel, it's still junk. There are of course better alternatives, but I suppose the manufacturers have decided that whatever looks good and helps them push as much crap as possible, as fast as possible, out into the marketplace is what's most important. I suppose it makes sense, since the age of more and more people losing their homes and ending up in RV's as an alternative has been a big part of this last decade plus (and it's accelerating more and more every day) so this has all been a goldmine for the RV pirates, and it appears it will continue to be.
This all reminds me of the big three US auto makers back in the 70's, when they went before Congress and all whined about how hard it was to do anything at all to build cars that polluted less and how many decades they claimed it was going to take them to even begin to think in those terms. Then, and I believe it was the very next day, the founder of Honda sat down and told the Congressional committee holding the hearing that not only did his CVCC engine already meet the more stringent emissions requirements being considered, but Honda was already a decade ahead of where they hoped to eventually take the regulations. The issue of quality and improved engineering is all about corporate will and profit. The Japanese took the attitude that building the best of something will eventually win market share, whereas most US manufacturers have traditionally focused simply on this quarter's profits and how to make more bigger cheaper faster, and it shows - sadly. Of course there are exceptions, but they continue to be more and more rare.
As it applies to the RV industry (and the U.S. based portion of that in particular) there are so many new and amazingly efficient materials and types of equipment out there, that could be employed to build some truly wonderful units, that it's absolutely staggering. The Euro-styled windows come immediately to mind, but here the manufacturers are still acting like their foggy old double pane junk is somehow special because they now have a frameless one that looks cool? The leading cause of fires in RV's has been, for a long while, LP fired refrigerators. There are incredibly efficient and better performing all electric DC components available (and there would be exponentially more if they were made the industry standard) but the big builders are still selling the old tech as if it were something to crow about. I think worst of all however is the issue of just how these box builders construct their bolt-on boxes.
There are ceramic matrix composites available that can be run in a continuous production type configuration (vs. the old and expensive batch type) somewhat similar to way these cheaper foam composites are formed. The result can provide incredible strength to weight, I think it was something like R-30 in about a 2" cross section, and depending upon the orientation of the Z-axis fibers (these are reinforced in three dimensions) can actually stop bullets? Pretty amazing stuff, and of course, the more companies that use it, the cheaper it can be made and distributed, but no, they're still building with sticks and stuffing fiberglass (one of the world's worst insulators) between the sticks. That all supports mold, and none of it can deal with moisture, but still they persist. It always makes me laugh when I hear any of their sales pukes attempt to elaborate on any makers' insulation "package". They're all oversold thermal catastrophes that function more like a thermal seive.
Sorry to rant, but it's cathartic.
Build a tighter box with higher long wave radiation reflectivity and more resistance to thermal transmission (higher 'R'), put truly efficient windows and doors in it, and presto - suddenly your heating and air conditioning loads are cut in half, or more! So instead of sweltering in your leaking box while the generator drones on emptying your diesel or LP tank by the minute, we could be enjoying truly comfortable conditioned air spaces using half or less the energy, which in turn makes smaller and less expensive solar solutions all that much more viable. It's not really that complicated, but they would have you believe so. The same happens with solar - it simply doesn't have to be so complicated.
Instead of trying to fit a 10 kw array on a roof, why not build a more efficient box that doesn't need all of that? We should already have 48 volt solar roofs with integrated Tesla Power-walls available, powering high efficiency A/C, silent hydronic heat, hugely efficient refrigeration, and fume-less induction cooking, as well as direct solar water heating w/ PV boost for endless hot water. Taking a 10 or 20 year loan might actually start to make a little sense then (although I would still argue the contrary, but that's for another rant). NO, instead we have one of the biggest RV manufacturers in the world building crap that can't even provide a solid floor after just weeks or months of use? Yeah - pretty freakin' pathetic, but I'm sure profits are up.
vic