cracks on lap caulk seal

Yardvarkers wrote:
Larry. I am not a now it all. But in IMHO your rig's roof seals should not be in that condition after just 16 months. I'm guessing that you bought it as a new TT. The pics you have, were they taken at the dealership? If not, there may be some underlying problem. They still should repair, refund your $$, or sell one to you that looks like and is new, not a rental, loaner, or used rig. I do get on the roof of my 14 year old Jayco TT two or more times yearly to inspect, clean, and repair anything I notice. The cracks in the lap caulk on my TT do not appear to be near as bad as the pics you have. My roof still has a nice white color to it also. It does and will loose some of the white color when washing but that is normal. The cracks I posted about are not deep, or look deeply open. I had my son to get up on it and use "Dicor Self-Leveling Lap Sealant - White" to seal the cracks in the seals.
I hope you can resolve the problem easily.
Sincerely, Yardvarkers.:)

LarryJM wrote:
If you don't get up on your roof and check the caulk yearly you could be in for some expensive repairs. My trailer was manufactured in June 2006 and the below pics were taken in Oct 2007 during my PDI just 16mos after the original caulk was put on a virgin roof.

If you read my post carefully I specified those pics were taken DURING MY PDI (actually I took them before I made the offer on the trailer so fixing the caulking was written into the purchase contract) so it was at the dealership and the unit was a BRAND NEW never used unit. Yes, I had them go over those cracks before I acccepted delivery since that was the reason I specifically looked at the roof caulking. Point is you still need to do VERY FREQUENT roof inspections and caulking is a hit or miss on how long it will last. I agree I didn't think the caulking job was very good on my trailer, but it was as it came from the factory so it was what it was and I have seen other pics of caulking here that were both the same and some that were better so there is not standard of workmanship as it pretains to caulking across manufacturers. My trailer sat on the dealers lot out in the elements which was in southern Md. Within a year I removed every speck of caulking on my roof and Eternabonded every thing and now almost 6 years later it looks as good as the day I put it one and expect it will 10 more years from now.

I'm definitely not a fan of caulk on a roof since IMO I don't think you can effectively do a proper inspection and to reseal over the old caulk you need IMO to recoat it and get new caulk past the edges of the existing caulk which often is not feasible when flanges with are involved like on ventilation vents. Also unless you physically take something and try and pry up every edge there is almost no way to tell if the caulk is adhered to the roof along the entire seams. The number of threads on roof leaks and damage is IMO at least ancedotal evidence that caulking often fails w/o obvious visible issues.

Larry