Liquid rubber

Good report chuck. If we still had the 2001 awesome Alpenlite I would be using your information but sold it last year because of wife's health. however we will be going south the 22nd in A Rockwood fifthwheel. chevman

This year, I took on completely re-coating my RV roof with Henry 877 Tropi-Cool 100% Silicone White Roof Coating.
Products cost about the same online or Home Depot. $239.89 for large tub of Henry's coating and $12.99 per tube of caulking.

If you see from my previous post a couple of weeks ago, I did a lot of research trying to find the best product to repair/re-coat my RV roof with. I worked like a dog for nearly a week trying to beat the Fall weather. Wished I could of done the roof repair/coating in better weather conditions. Sweating bullets all week worrying about the possibility of rainy weather.

Below is my step-by step process, along with before/after pictures.

CAUTION! Slow down on the roof. If you fall off you will probably spend a lot of time in the hospital recovering if you are lucky!

My Process
Well it took me most of a week to completely re-coat my RV roof!
Tuesday Morning
Using a mixture of bleach, TSP, and water, hand scrub the entire roof (I did use a pressure washer to get the dirt out from under the roof air conditioner units). This took me a good part of the day alone!
Peel off the old, very thin rubber coating

Three and a half days later, wearing out a pair of leather gloves, I thought I gave it my best shot at getting off the old coating

Saturday Afternoon
Apply the new coating
Clean out all of the old caulking above the roof gutter and replace it with new Henry's caulking.
Mix the coating with a drill. Pour out about one quart into a paint tray. The Henry 877 coating pours out like the thickness of pancake syrup.
Use a leaf blower to blow off any material laying on the roof
Begin applying the Henry 877 using a four inch paint brush to do the corners, sides, roof pipe outlets, vents and air conditioners. I only did a 5 to 7 foot section at a time.
Use a 9 inch long by 1/2 inch nap paint roller to spread out the Henry's roof coating. This took about two to three hours to fully cover the 8 foot wide by 34 foot long 5th wheel roof with one coat.
On the next day, apply a second coat. I used about a full 5 gallon tub/container to do two coats.



Lessons Learned:
Try to apply the coating on fairly calm day. The wind can carry the coating in the air when applying it.
I applied the coating when the temperature was in the mid 60's to upper 68 degrees. Sun helps, but I cannot imagine trying to apply Henry's coating or any other roof coating on a day when it is approaching upper 70 degrees or higher. Too hot for me to do a roof!.
The roof must be completely dry before applying the new coating. During the Fall season, moisture in the morning is hard to dry off the roof, you may have to wait for the sun to come out. Dampness or morning dew can take several hours to dry off the roof.
Give yourself plenty of time to do a good job. The faster you try to apply the roof caulking or roof coating you are most likely to do a sloppy job and have a mess.


Conclusion
Got lucky this time around! Henry's 877 when on fine, thick enough to be impressive and I believe I made the right product choice.

We are a fan of Heng's also. Very little prep involved. Wash the roof in powder laundry detergent, let it dry, and apply it.

Yes, they do it both ways and price accordingly. Click on the "learn more" link of the website and they explain the tear off. I wanted a tear off to find out what shape my roof was in because I intend to leave it for my sons use in his campground when we are done with it. I don't want to leave him a pile of garbage.

Next summer I will have it professionally detailed outside and, with that done, the trailer will be essentially a new trailer inside and out. We have already replaced the fridge, and air conditioner and many other minor items.
Barney

BarneyS wrote:
Bringing this up again as my roof was torn off and replaced last weekend in three days by a very conscientious and well trained technician from RV Armor.

Barney, you say they tore off the rubber, but the video on their website shows they apply a coating over the existing rubber. Do they do both, and price accordingly?

Hey that looks great.

Bringing this up again as my roof was torn off and replaced last weekend in three days by a very conscientious and well trained technician from RV Armor.
They came to my trailer location out in the woods and did it right there on site. I am completely thrilled with the work done and how the roof looks now. No more worry about leaks.

As you can see by the pictures below, my roof looked terrible but was not leaking a bit as evidenced by the condition of the wood after the rubber was torn off. I was a bit worried but knew I had been quite proactive in taking care of it for the past 17 years. I would have no worries about recommending this company if you are looking to repair your roof or are interested in getting the longest life possible out of your rig.
Barney

Roof before


Rubber roof removed.


Roof right after application

Roof completed. We left the luggage rack off because it had never been used and never would be.

I think most of the acrylic coatings are pretty much the same. Some claim to last for 7 years some 10 years or longer. Liquid rubber is suppose to be EPDM material but have heard of problems similar to Barny's. The top white coating is what sloughs off over time leaving the black substrate exposed like shown in Barney's photo. My MH is a 1996 and I recoated it in 2006 with Cool Seal that a friend gave me because his new MH had a FG roof. I had enough for a primer coat and one base coat. It lasted about 7 years before showing signs of wear. I started seeing the black show through several years ago. I recoated it with Rustoleum acrylic coating from Walmart this year. I power washed the roof and recoated with two coats. It cost $20 per gallon and used 1.5 gallons on a 33ft MH. I looked at others like Henry's Tropicool which is a silicone based coating and supposed to last longer, Heng's, Buscote etc but all were much more expensive. Many warn against using acrylic coatings in ponding water so apply in sunny dry weather where no rain is expected for at least 5 days. The new coating reflects the sun keeping the MH much cooler in the summer. Roofs get stained with stuff falling from trees, bird dropping's etc so recoating every 7-10 years is good to not only protect the rubber roof but to keep it white and looking good.

Louie007 wrote:
Has anyone tried liquid rubber L R

Yes! I did several years ago and posted about it here, with pictures.

Make sure you read the whole thread because I can no longer recommend the stuff that I used in that thread. You will see in later posts why.

In two weeks, I am having the whole rubber roof replaced at a cost of over $6500 which probably would not have happened had I not used the product that I did. I wish I had just used a simple paint like product as has been mentioned earlier in this thread.
Barney

Another vote for Heng! Nice stuff