Rubber Roof Billows; troubleshoot and repair

MA

Mark2cars

Advanced Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2016
Messages
80
Location
Sanderson Texas
First a great big thank you to all who have helped me with every problem or challenge I have had in the last week or so with the 2002 19L I purchase in Arizona and towed back to West Texas. We left Sanderson this morning before dawn and after an hour on the road my wife noticed the rubber roof material was "inflating" on the front drivers side corner. It has not pulled out or torn loose from the trim piece yet. We in a campground outside Alpine Texas. What the heck do I do...short term to get home and then long term ? We are considering removing the exterior trim on the front of the top and applying some sort of adhesive underneath, pulling it snug and putting the trim back on. All this while we are on a "time out" long weekend. Do we need to replace the entire rubber roof...? Help !!!

As Always Thanks !!!
Mark
 
If you could buy some tie-down straps (the wide ones with ratcheting length adjusters, you might be able to run a couple of those over the top where it's lifting and anchor them down the sides to something underneath.

I've seen these things in Home Depot, Harbor Freight, etc. Measure the length you need. You might have to splice two together to reach a suitable anchor point, although you'd need only one ratcheting style in the spliced length.

The other possibility would be a length of rope that could go over the top twice at least to hold down some "flattening" thing like a piece of plywood.

You might find such things in Alpine.

I suspect there IS an opening along the front edge that if sealed, will stop the billowing.

- Jack
 
A Temporary Repair

Jack
Thanks for your input ! My brilliant wife Alex who is very talented came up with this fix to get us home. She found a roll/box of kitchen plastic wrap in the kitchen supplies. We are going to take a continuous piece of that and pull it tight across the roof and over the leading edge. Then use duct tape pulled tightly to hold it in place on the roof and coming down the sides and attaching to the side of the trailer. Will use as many "strips" of tape as we can fit on the plastic wrap. I will let you know how this works.
Next problem will be attaching the original rubber roof with some adhesive. Then hoping there are no more issues with the roof. I would hate to have to locate the material to completely recover the roof.
 
Alex IS brilliant! That sounds a good (and fairly easy) temporary fix!

If you can locate the opening, I suspect something like EternaBond tape would cover it and keep the wind from getting in underneath.

- Jack
 
New Roof

In the mean time this morning I found complete rubber roof kits with the new roof material,adhesive,sealer, tape for the trim and AC etc. for under $350 !!!! Not bad. Would rather not have to do this however a brand new roof at this price is great.
 
Home Safe

Alex's fix got us home !!! We are definitely going to have to replace the old original roof. On close inspection the very edge of the entire roof is very "sun aged" and cracking. No interior leaks yet. We have never done this however are very familiar with large expanses of vinyl from our upholstery shop. I am a little nervous about the remove and replace of the AC unit. An extra bonus here (lol) is we could not get the refrigerator to run on shore power !!! I will post in the proper forum on this issue !! I attempted to add a picture of Alex "adjusting" her fix.:)
 

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I don't think there is anything particularly difficult about removing and replacing the AC, except that it is HEAVY! Hope you have some neighbors willing to help. I think Treeclimber did this recently? Anyway, one of our members did and will have some good advice for you.

Glad you made it home without further damage.

- Jack
 
Update...ordered the 20' kit from RV Parts Nation yesterday. Now the wait. We will probably begin the removal of all the roof mounted vents etc. before the kit arrives. We are also going to repair the awning fabric at this time. Will post pics when we begin.
 
Mark, Jack's right, I just removed and replaced my A/C about 10 days ago. Nothing especially difficult about it. Except, as Jack says, it's HEAVY! Only 85# but at the angle of lift and the sealing effect of the seal, it is heavy. Can't slide it, but when placed on thick cardboard, you can move it to the edge and with help, lower it to the ground. Reverse putting it back up. When down, it's the prefect time to thoroughly clean out the inside, paint the outside, lube what you can, ETC. A new seal IS required. 14" X 14". Follow instructions when compressing the seal. Mine said to compress to 1/2". Did that, no leaks. Once nearly in place, I used the inside mounting bolts (about 8" long), screwed them in place about 1" or so and used those JUST to center the unit from the inside with the top raised. Just me, but when I remove anything from the roof, I fill the holes with caulk and put the new vent in. May or may not hit the original holes.
Tree
 
OK the rubber roof kit is scheduled to be here in a week. My question is this....what is the material under the rubber roof material ? Metal...plywood...etc? Input needed..thanks !!
 
I'm curious as well. When I examine the roof it appears that only a small thin sheet of rubber is sandwiched in there. That's all this required to qualify as a "rubber roof"? odd.
 
r67northern has done this. search "rubber roof" and check out his well documented post dealing with this. Also, youtube has a couple very good videos showing how to do this. Thin plywood is under the rubber.
Tree
 
Have seen several videos and read a few posts on this. It looks fairly straight forward. We already have a lot of experience working with vinyl from our upholstery shop. I am sure it will be one of those jobs that we will go slowly with. I will take pictures !!!
 
Our Roof Replacement

OK...roof kit arrived from RV Parts Nation. Quality material ! It took over three weeks to get it here however it was worth the wait. Includes everything you need...new roofing material/adhesive/caulk/butyl tape. Complete kit for a 20' trailer was under $330 shipped. I will post pictures here as we move along. Yesterday was spent Removing the awning, AC, vent covers and stinky pipe cover. The old TV antenna will be ditched ! While off Alex will replace the last 18" to 24" of the awning material that always dry rots. Separate pictures on that later. The trim pieces were removed and cleaned up w/o any problems. The AC unit was also not a large deal. Our friend Sam dropped by to help and was much appreciated. We are in luck as the next few days here in West Texas are warm w/o any rain, however Saturday will bring high winds ....22mph and up ! So it looks like Friday is the day !
 

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