Finished! Roof Coating/Maintenance Report with Henry's 877

[Chuck___]

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

1. 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!
   
2. 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

1. Clean out all of the old caulking above the roof gutter and replace it with new Henry's caulking.
   
2. 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.
   
3. Use a leaf blower to blow off any material laying on the roof
   
4. 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.
   
5. 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.
   
6. On the next day, apply a second coat. I used about a full 5 gallon tub/container to do two coats.
   

Lessons Learned:

1. Try to apply the coating on fairly calm day. The wind can carry the coating in the air when applying it.
   
2. 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!.
   
3. 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.
   
4. 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.

[frankwp]

Thanks, that makes sense. I though maybe it was some regional term or something.

[Chuck___]

Sorry, not the best speller or writer. CAULKING

Good catch!

[Lwiddis]

Good work. I'll wager it performs fine for a number of years.

[frankwp]

Maybe I'm asking a dumb question, but what is "clacking"? Roof looks good!

[cavie]

did mine two months ago. We can pray together.

[Ed9824v]

Looking forward to the long term review.