I'm trying to take steps to prevent that from happening to me. I Eternabonded all the roof joints, and the small gutter over the slide. I want to install RainKap to keep water away from the windows and doors. Apparently there is a problem with water inflitration where the awning attaches to the trailer. I have seen a RainKap fix on this board that I may try to emulate. I need to examine and seal the 2 clearance lights on the front of the trailer. Unless I want to do it on vacation, these projects are goung to have to wait until spring.
double jj wrote: ...the consumer needs to understand, that an rv is higher maintenance than a house.An rv needs a yearly sealant inspection...
Actually I have heard the recommendation as every six months but the problem still is poor design.
My trailer was fine in the fall and had no cracks in the sealant. Around March (four months after winterizing) I found a puddle on the floor and damaged particle board under the roof membrane. With the poor design and lousy materials any leak can do much damage in a very short time.
More often you check your seals the better it is, and yes I do understand your pain.Particle board is a wooden sponge. I prefer fibreglass or metal roof.They do a better job protecting the wood underneath. Rubber is cheaper and takes all shapes the designers desire and it's quieter on a rainy day. But it's prone to rip if a tree branch rubs on it,it's easier to get punctured,it deteriorates faster with prolonged uv rays, and I can go on and on with reasons,why rubber is not on my preference list. I forgot to mention,check your roof a/c seal.It doesn't hurt to tighten it's 4 retaining bolts.You have to remove the shroud for access.But don't over tighten them.
Maintenance, right, that's crucial, but if the design was better where we have these overlaps and seams, the problems would be less likely to damage the interior structure.
I see laps that are 'shingled' backwards, where wind will force the water into the lapped area because the lap doesn't shingle over in line with the water flow. Only a blind engineer would design that ...
and we all know that the best way to shield a penitration on the side-wall is with a z-bar type flashing - NOT push the window onto a hole cut in the wall with some caulking behind it. But, this design continues ... but the most problematic seems to be where the roof joins the front wall ...
and I can never figure out why someone can't design a nose piece that corrects this -- the molded plastics are easily manufactured to seal in two directions - it's not like we only have sheet-products - although that's how it appears in lots of low-end RV products. And the problem is often too, 'skimp' on the caulking behind the corner beads - caulking 'the most inexpensive' item in the building of an RV, and that's where installers skimp ... bizarre!!
Looks like part of what happened in Josh's TT (see his post - maybe someone can clicky it here) - on the front edges. But he got it in time, looks like - and can repair it without tooooooooooo much trouble.
you chose the right person to agree with you
the design is most of the time pretty lousy.
than it's the manufacturing issue.
I have the habit of filling the gaps behind the corner moldings, every time I remove and reinstall them. But then I ask myself, why are the gaps there in the first place? The manufacturer is suppose to wrap the metal around the corners. But they cut it to size, or shorter, because it's faster to install, or whatever reason they might come up with.
I'm glad that the industry is slowly phasing out the sheet metal construction. But Filon is not perfect either, since it's relying on the lamination. If the glue doesn't work the Filon will warp. And water penetration is one cause for the glue to stop working.Now if the manufacturers could stop using rubber as a roof material and maybe take Winnebago as an example, who use strictly use fibreglass, some manufacturers use metal too. With that, they could even use a higher quality roof sealant that doesn't crack as quickly as Dicor for rubber roofs.It doesn't take a Rocket scientist to figure this one out.
In my trade school we were taught to use tape for clean borders while applying roof sealant. It's a clean and even finish. Why not using this method at the factory?
i see more units rolling in with rubber sealed windows, instead of the old butyl or "half and half" putty for the sheet metal.It would be a good idea, if the rubber was of better quality and wouldn't stay crushed in after installation.
Now talking about the roof vents. We are going back to the roof material. Using better roof material, means being able to use better roof sealant that tolerates longer uv abuse.And of course use more of it for good measure.
I see a lot of roof moldings where the factory covered the screws with sealant. Why don't they cover the entire molding? I heard one factory forman telling me, that it looks better that way. I don't agree. Don't you think it would look better,If they covered the whole molding using tape for borders(put tape on each side of the molding and pull it off after application).
There are better solutions but it takes the will of the designers to come up with them.
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