repair rv roof

I was up at the lake winterizing our 36 foot montana camper yesterday and when I got up on the roof to sweep off the leaves, I noticed that where the front roof joined the metal there was a crack in the caulking. This is exactly the area we have talked about in the past. The EPDM rubber roof was glued down to the trailer and the metal was brought over the top and screwed down with a metal bar and then caulk was applied to seal the screws and metal bar. We have discussed before that this is a bad design. The factory could have used 6" cover tape during the original installation and I would not have had roofing problems. All I had with me was a tube of caulk, so I washed the area throughly and applied the caulk. However this is only a tempory repair. Next I am up I will install a new 6" cover strip of tape to make a perment repair. I will finially start the roof replacement on this RV camper. We will be putting a new RV rubber roof on this camper and taking pictures of it.

rv roof repairs

We are just about ready to start our replacement on our RV rubber roof. This epdm rubber roof was leaking in several places. The worst was on the front where the metal joined the rubber roof. This area is usually one of the first places your RV rubber roof will leak. Sometimes you can just repair this area and not have to replace your entire roof. On one of my campers I had to repair this area and the camper was only seven years old. To make a permant repair on this area, I first cleaned with water. I changed rags constantly because the rags were dirty, not with dirt but with a chalk substance comming from the rubber roof. So be sure to keep using clean rags. If you do not clean this area enough your repair tape will not stick correctly. Once you have cleaned the epdm roofing membrane you need to apply a tape primer activator to the roof and the metal where the roof joins. Once you have coated this area with primer let dry then do it again. Then using 6" wide epdm cover tape put three inches on the metal and three on the rubber roof. Then roll with a roller the tape into the primer. This will make a permanent repair. I have been busy the last few weeks and it looks like it will now be the last of October before we do the RV roof replacement.