What would be a fair price on replacing the roof of my 2001 Alpenlite 1150 Santa FE. No decking needs repairing just a new roof. It currently has a rubber roof. The shop wants to replace it with a Britex TPO roof that comes with a 12 year warranty. They would also replace the vents and antenna. Quote was $2,200.
....firstly, how thick (what is the gauge) of that BriteTek Dicor TPO roofing material? Is it 20 mil? 36 mil? 45 mil? 50 mil? Also, find out how thick the "felt" is that will be laid-down on top of the roof decking, under the TPO (1/8 inch? 3/16th ?). The felt underlay is what will give that TPO (or, PVC) good low speed and high speed impact resistance.
Our TPO roof (we have the pre patent expiration TPO formulation, from 2004) is about to enter its 13th year, and looks as good as it did the day we bought our camper. And, I've hit
numerous tree branches backing and driving through forests on that roofing, with no tears of any kind from these instances. We have a 3/16th felt underlay. The only damage we sustained, is the day (about 7 years ago) I dropped a ~5 LB hardened razor-sharp steel tree pruning head 20 feet onto the roof. It caused a very small pin hole in 1 location, and a 1/4 inch long dent in a second location. I patched it properly, and it is holding 100%. If that would have been an EPDM rubber membrane, I would have had to re-do the entire roof.
The biggest issue with roof membrane leaks, are the dozens (or, sometimes hundreds) of screw holes made by the manufacturer to mount all the vents, air conditioner, roof racking, plumbing stacks, fridge vent and solar panels on the roof-top. Every one of those dozens (or, hundreds) of screw holes can and will probably leak at some point (regardless if you have EPDM rubber or TPO membrane). The best way to tell, is when you back out the roof-top screws, the screw thread, if rusted, means you have a serious leak problem (and probably some x quantity of rotted roof decking). I replaced every screw on the rooftop of our camper after buying it, and did a proper "marine bedding technique" when I replaced them all with stainless-steel screws. At the same time, I re-seated/re-bedded all our roof-top vents.
I would probably be crossing my fingers vis-a-vis deck rotting; you will never know if your deck is rotting until: a) you feel spongy areas when you walk on the roof/or you see it on the underside of your camper's ceiling; and the most important one: b) you (or, your contractor) lifts and peels back the rubber membrane (most likely if your membrane is glued to the rooftop decking, your contractor will peel back the rubber membrane WITH chunks of your surface-rotted decking LOL! ).
Anyhow, if that TPO is a robust gauge, and your contractor has priced in thick underlay felt (and, your roof deck isn't rotted in places), that $2000ish price (with 12 year warranty: pro-rated???) seems very, very reasonable for your sized camper...
Good luck!
