I'm thinking the best way to stop roof leaks once and for all is with spray on bed liner on the roof. Can anyone recommend a good brand name that might have a dealer in the Minneapolis area?
There is a place in Northern Florida that does only RV roofs, but they quoted over $4,000 plus I would spend probably $2,000 on travel. I know there is a place in New Mexico or some place in the southwest that Clifford recommends, but travel would be an issue. I got a quote of just over $2,000 from one place locally that doesn't seem so bad now. I'm also considering a roll on DIY product called Monstaliner.
What's wrong with Henry's Solar Flex? I just rolled it on with a roller and tadaa!
I tried a roll on elastomeric coating from Lowe's earlier this summer. One coat with a 3/4" nap roller should have taken most of the 4.75 gallon bucket. I followed the directions (except one step) and ended up using maybe one gallon for my roof for one coat. The one thing I did not do is stir it with a paint stirrer in a drill before I used it. The stuff is no thicker than an ordinary coat of paint. It didn't really seal up any of the cracks and I wasn't convinced a second coat would help so I haven't tried a second coat.
I've had spray on bed liners in several trucks and the stuff formed one continuous layer at least 1/6" thick. I think it would also work good on my roof.
I rolled 4.75 gallons of Henry's Solarflex on our bus (40 ft BlueBird). That worked out to about 3 thin coats. That was in summer 2011. It makes a huge difference. I bought ours from home Depot. Also the Snow Roofing products are very good as well.
I like the lining material best the price is expensive because of all the prep work once applied it is there forever and tree limbs won't peel it off
1. Remove any and all silicone. This is deadly to anything else sticking.
2. Remove old caulking. (I used a multi-tool.)
3. Clean surface and caulk with urethane caulking.
4. Then you can paint or "bedliner", or ...
5. Do NOT use anything with silicone !!
If you find something easy, it probably will leak in the future.
Ed Roelle
Flint, MI
lorna,
why did you install a roof coating? what did it help, sound, looks, shade, leaks?
So Clifford, if somebody used it on their ac units that would keep branches from peeling them off too? ;D I wonder how that stuff would work/look on the sides of a bus instead of paint? Probably last forever, cost the same or less than a lot of paint jobs........and as far as looks? Ok, no high gloss shine, more of an orange peel or textured look up close, but from 10-15 ft. away it might look ok, especially if you had a stripe or swirl of gloss paint or a decal on it. Hmmmmm.
Smith can spray the stuff smooth and with a high gloss ED plus different colors stop by his shop some day if you are in Albuquerque he is off I 40 about a block on Juan Tabo does amazing things with the stuff
Clifford, the name of his shop? His full name and name on the board? I know that i met him at that small rally that we had at St. George a couple of years ago but you know how the memory thing is. :) We were in Albuquerque on our way to the rally in Blytheville this spring, wish i had known about this then.
Jim is going to paint his Eagle with the material I am waiting to see the out come bet it will be work of art,his and Becky's shop is Smith's Ultimate Lining you did meet him at that rally has a 07 Eagle was parked next to Larry Jones with model 15
Quote from: white-eagle on August 03, 2013, 07:18:07 AM
lorna,
why did you install a roof coating? what did it help, sound, looks, shade, leaks?
We used to live in an old Class C that had several leaks. After much research, I ended up patching and rolling white Snow Roof Elastometric on the roof. It cut the heat dramatically. Then we decided to roll a coat of the Snow Roof on the 16 Ft cargo trailer we were using to haul all our tools from state to state. We when from raising a blister when we accidently touched the interior of the roof to being able to hold our hand on the roof for an extended time. While the BlueBird waspretty much rust free, unlike our old Eagle, there was a leak in the roof at one or two rivets. Since a BlueBird has a million rivets just in the roof alone, I used Henrys elastometric roof caulk on the metal seams and all the rivets. Then rolled Henrys white Solarflex on the roof. After the first coat, the temps inside droped dramatically. And this was during the summer in central NM desert summer. Again, we went from being able to touch the rivets on the interior to minimal heat transfer. The roof coating provides a thermal break for the rivets from both the heat and cold. We spent last summer in Roswell NM with no air conditioning. Finding Snow Roof at our then local store was not an option. So we ended up with Solarflex which seems to do a better job. When we convert a skoolie for our daughter (she lives in our old Class C now) the roof will be caulked then rolled with SolarFlex. We like it that much. By that time we will be needing to recoat our bus roof.
Does it lay down smooth or is it lumpy? Do you have to clean and prime the roof first?
Dave5Cs from Galaxy S III
I used a standard paint roller for flat paint on walls. Nothing special. It left a moderately rough finish. I washed roof really well with laundry detergent and bleach. Our white roof was greenish brown from dead mildew. It had set for a few years in high humidity NC mountains, then it sat for over a year in convection oven NM.
I like how to roof turned out. It has made living in/a convection oven bearable. We are parked under a couple of what they call "nice shade trees" out here. The branches hit the roof at times. So far the roof is holding up okay. It's got a lot of brown dust on it from the daily wind storms, and the birds that roost in the trees overnight poop all over the roof. But after one of the really good downpour rains that we don't get often enough, the roof is fairly clean.
We have been in this campground since Dec 2011. Others that have been here roughly the same length of time and had white rubber roofs, now look far worse than our roof.
Does anyone know if this roof sealing stiff would work on window rubber or seal leaks?
My 4104 has 3 factory installed skylights and atleast one of them leaks.
I am looking for a simple solution compared to removing skylight rubber and replacing with new skylight rubber.
Siberyd
I used butyl rubber caulking around my windows. You can smooth it out using a finger dipped in mineral spirits.
Dan
Quote from: belfert on August 02, 2013, 05:35:33 PM
I'm thinking the best way to stop roof leaks once and for all is with spray on bed liner on the roof. Can anyone recommend a good brand name that might have a dealer in the Minneapolis area?
We had the bed of our Ranger sprayed at a place in Rogers. I think it's called ArmaCoatings. They did a great job. 2 hours. $428.
It's a little harder than Rhino. Not quite as sticky, but seems to be holding up very well though we don't haul much more than groceries in it.
They had a display of several different colors they can spray. No idea if they can do a bus roof, but I suspect they could. They have a pretty big
shop where they do the spraying.
I've been talking with ArmaCoatings. Their rough estimate wasn't too bad. To get a detailed estimate I need to send them a bunch of pictures or take the bus to them. I simply don't have the couple of hours to take the bus for an estimate. They do white, but it has to be top coated to protect from UV. There are spray on products that won't yellow, but they said they have to have a complete separate system for spraying the other products or they have to spend hundreds of dollars cleaning their equipment.
I've also talked to Smith's Ultimate Coatings and David's Permanent Coatings (rvroof.com). Both wanted $5,000 or so. The good thing about rvroof.com is they replace all vents and do all the labor to remove air conditioners and anything else that needs removal. They are more than I can afford and more than I want to invest in my bus. The travel costs alone to either of these places would pay for most of the job at ArmaCoatings.
I'm still considering DIY, but I don't know that I would get a smooth consistent application that completely seals everything. If I go the DIY route I would probably use Monstaliner which is UV safe.
This stuff looks good Clifford.
http://www.smithsultimate.com/html/index.php (http://www.smithsultimate.com/html/index.php)
I hate to admitting mistakes, but i figure i could save someone else the grief.
I ordered the Henry's solarflex 5 gal bucket based on comments here. I didn't ask to right questions from the folks that used Henry's, nor did i pay that much attention to where they were when they put it on.
Turns out, Henry's doesn't cure for 24 to 48 hours. It REQUIRES absolute dryness. i read the directions when we ordered it in but didn't pay enough attention to dew. We don't have dry days without dew in TN.
i picked days that were excellent this week to apply paint. no rain for 3-4 days, low 80's and high 50's to low 60's at night. Great time to paint.
i put the first coat on yesterday starting at about 11 and finishing at 5. The roof was well below the too hot to touch temp. Perfect.
This morning, i thought i'd put the 2nd coat on, then noticed some ugly drool sections on the edges of the roof. Climbing up the ladder, it was just a little water still on the roof. But the center sections, where it was flatter, had goopy paint that was like watered down.
I called Henry's, after re-reading the label and realizing my error. They said nothing you can do but hope the sun drys it out enough today, before the dew tonight.
now, i have to put the roof back together, put the ac covers on, and maybe finish painting it under a roof next month when i don't have time to fuss with this, which is why i wanted to get it done now.
beware of Henry's and other paints that just don't dry well. roof paint? not unless you live where it's a desert or have a building to hide under.