Any special precautions when mounting to edpm roof?

Good to hear
Thanks for the follow up

Well nuts do indeed create a water tight seal, provided you also slather up the screw itself. The EDPM roof bunches a little as the rubber of the wellnut compresses and deforms (as it should). I didn't have any problem with the EDPM roofing twisting along with the drill bit. Just cleanly sliced right through it. I used a 1/2 wood bit at high speed. No worries, easy peasy.

RVcircus wrote:

Bumpyroad wrote:
what might work is a type of well nut that BPS and other marine dealers sell to mount trolling motors on a flat surface. about 3-4 inches long rubber with a brass nut that when you tighten it down it mashes the rubber out and ends up being fairly secure. it has to be secure when you have a 40-80 lb. thrust trolling motor jerking it around.
bumpy

Do you know if the rubber creates a water tight seal?

I don't know if it does but it is a long well nut type of thing that smashes a rubber gasket at the hole when tightened down.
bumpy

Bumpyroad wrote:
what might work is a type of well nut that BPS and other marine dealers sell to mount trolling motors on a flat surface. about 3-4 inches long rubber with a brass nut that when you tighten it down it mashes the rubber out and ends up being fairly secure. it has to be secure when you have a 40-80 lb. thrust trolling motor jerking it around.
bumpy

Do you know if the rubber creates a water tight seal?

If drilling use a piece of wood big enough to neel on it and drill though the wood into the roof, this will maintain the membrane from turning and bunching on the drill bit.

navegator

I mounted my King dish to the roof yesterday. The 1 inch long 1'2 inch diameter wellnuts worked great and after tugging and yanking on the antenna a few times I decided the Montana would disintegrate before this thing came off. Slathered the nuts good with lap sealant and called it a night.

what might work is a type of well nut that BPS and other marine dealers sell to mount trolling motors on a flat surface. about 3-4 inches long rubber with a brass nut that when you tighten it down it mashes the rubber out and ends up being fairly secure. it has to be secure when you have a 40-80 lb. thrust trolling motor jerking it around.
bumpy

My first and only experience with well nuts - on 1/4" wall panel - was rather discouraging. I was installing a 5-pound controller and didn't want to use 4 tapping screws on this thin plywood. After I removed the screw (and controller) to see how the first well nut was doing, it pulled itself into the wall with the lip and all, and disappeared there. Had to put another one, with huge washer to prevent this from happening again.

For roof brackets I used 4" aluminum angle, 6" long. Where I couldn't hit the rafters, I used 5 screws #10 per bracket. After many calculations and estimates I've decided that 5 screws per 4"x6" plate was more than enough for a flat 40"x65" panel. With plenty of Dicor under the bracket and over the screw heads.

My Montana has an aluminum framing structure and when I spoke to Mike Thompson RV in Colton they told me how they put on solar panels to these units. They use ignore the framing and use well nuts and cover those with lap sealant. I neglected to ask them if they drilled or did some other prep first.

I drill directly into mine.