I finished the painting of my roof yesterday with Liquid Roof, an EDPM rubber in liquid form. The results turned out great. Here is the product I used and the process I went through.
I purchased the product directly from the manufacturer given in the link above.
First, I scrubbed the roof with a bit of Awesome Cleaner from the local Dollar Tree store. I mixed in an ounce or two of auto liquid cleaner also and added a few gallons of water in the bucket. This did a good job of cleaning the roof.
I let it dry overnight and then taped the edges all around the whole trailer with blue painter tape. This job took me a few hours and I was bushed from going up and down the ladder so quit for the day.
That night we had a heavy rain and here is what the roof looked like the next morning. I let it dry out well and about noon I was ready to begin the paint job.
As you can see from the above pictures, my roof, which is about 8 years old was losing it's coating and had many spots which were caused by both bird droppings and "berries" from the local palm trees. I try to clean my roof at least twice per year but it was time to do something about it's condition.
I started out by mixing the product with the catalyst. It is advisable to rent a mixer that has the power to do the job. The Liquid Roof is very heavy and will burn out a normal 3/8 or 1/2 drill motor quickly. You need to mix it thoroughly which takes some time. I rented a mixer from Home Depot for $12 for a whole day. Well worth it! Here is the mixer I used.
It is advisable to have a helper available to hold the can and pour the catalyst into the product. It will take both of your hand and feet to control the mixer as the product is very heavy and thick and causes a lot of drag and twisting force on the mixer. After mixing in the catalyst, you have about 4 or 5 hours of working time with the product.
I purchased the product in one 1 gallon can and one 4 gallon can. I mixed up the 1 gallon first and used that to do around all my "stuff" up on the roof and around the entire perimeter of the trailer. I removed my vent covers for the cutting in and then replaced them before doing the rest of the roof. This used up about 3/4 of the gallon. The rest I used on the top of the roof. The product is supposed to cover about 40 sq feet per gallon if applied as a 20mil thick coating. That turned out to be a very accurate figure as I had only a small amount left when I finished.
Here are a couple of pictures of me doing the trim around the edges. That "supervisor" is my good buddy Jim, a retired Navy Master Chief who also helped me with the mixing of the product.
After doing the edges and cutting in the openings on the top, I got busy doing the rest of the roof.
I made a mistake thinking I would just pour the stuff on the roof and spread it with the roller. It is too thick to just use a roller and a squeege is needed. You pour a line on an area, spread it out with the squeege and then smooth it with the roller. The stuff is self leveling so you don't have to worry about ridges or getting it perfectly smooth. The idea is to try to get a nice even coat.
I don't have any pictures of this process as nobody else would climb up on my roof and my hands were to sticky to operate a camera. This product is very sticky and you must wear old shoes and old clothes as you will get some on you and the equipment. It cleans up with paint thinner or mineral spirits but I just threw out the squeege and paint brushes and rollers.
Here are a couple of pictures of the finished product. It dries to a kind of semi gloss finish which looks great. It is not quite a shiny now as it looks in the pictures. Another thing is that there are a few spots where the rubber roof seemed to develop bubbles - mostly near the edges on the flat part of the roof as you can see in the 2nd picture below. This is normal according to the manufacturer and should go back down. We'll see if that happens. Notice that it is applied right over the Eternabond tape that I put on about 5 years ago. That tape still looked like new.
All in all, this was a project that was not hard but tiring for me. If there was a way to get someone to operate a lift instead of climbing up and down that ladder the job would be a snap! :W
I am glad I took it on though as now my roof should outlast me!
Barney
I purchased the product directly from the manufacturer given in the link above.
First, I scrubbed the roof with a bit of Awesome Cleaner from the local Dollar Tree store. I mixed in an ounce or two of auto liquid cleaner also and added a few gallons of water in the bucket. This did a good job of cleaning the roof.
I let it dry overnight and then taped the edges all around the whole trailer with blue painter tape. This job took me a few hours and I was bushed from going up and down the ladder so quit for the day.
That night we had a heavy rain and here is what the roof looked like the next morning. I let it dry out well and about noon I was ready to begin the paint job.
As you can see from the above pictures, my roof, which is about 8 years old was losing it's coating and had many spots which were caused by both bird droppings and "berries" from the local palm trees. I try to clean my roof at least twice per year but it was time to do something about it's condition.
I started out by mixing the product with the catalyst. It is advisable to rent a mixer that has the power to do the job. The Liquid Roof is very heavy and will burn out a normal 3/8 or 1/2 drill motor quickly. You need to mix it thoroughly which takes some time. I rented a mixer from Home Depot for $12 for a whole day. Well worth it! Here is the mixer I used.
It is advisable to have a helper available to hold the can and pour the catalyst into the product. It will take both of your hand and feet to control the mixer as the product is very heavy and thick and causes a lot of drag and twisting force on the mixer. After mixing in the catalyst, you have about 4 or 5 hours of working time with the product.
I purchased the product in one 1 gallon can and one 4 gallon can. I mixed up the 1 gallon first and used that to do around all my "stuff" up on the roof and around the entire perimeter of the trailer. I removed my vent covers for the cutting in and then replaced them before doing the rest of the roof. This used up about 3/4 of the gallon. The rest I used on the top of the roof. The product is supposed to cover about 40 sq feet per gallon if applied as a 20mil thick coating. That turned out to be a very accurate figure as I had only a small amount left when I finished.
Here are a couple of pictures of me doing the trim around the edges. That "supervisor" is my good buddy Jim, a retired Navy Master Chief who also helped me with the mixing of the product.
After doing the edges and cutting in the openings on the top, I got busy doing the rest of the roof.
I made a mistake thinking I would just pour the stuff on the roof and spread it with the roller. It is too thick to just use a roller and a squeege is needed. You pour a line on an area, spread it out with the squeege and then smooth it with the roller. The stuff is self leveling so you don't have to worry about ridges or getting it perfectly smooth. The idea is to try to get a nice even coat.
I don't have any pictures of this process as nobody else would climb up on my roof and my hands were to sticky to operate a camera. This product is very sticky and you must wear old shoes and old clothes as you will get some on you and the equipment. It cleans up with paint thinner or mineral spirits but I just threw out the squeege and paint brushes and rollers.
Here are a couple of pictures of the finished product. It dries to a kind of semi gloss finish which looks great. It is not quite a shiny now as it looks in the pictures. Another thing is that there are a few spots where the rubber roof seemed to develop bubbles - mostly near the edges on the flat part of the roof as you can see in the 2nd picture below. This is normal according to the manufacturer and should go back down. We'll see if that happens. Notice that it is applied right over the Eternabond tape that I put on about 5 years ago. That tape still looked like new.
All in all, this was a project that was not hard but tiring for me. If there was a way to get someone to operate a lift instead of climbing up and down that ladder the job would be a snap! :W
I am glad I took it on though as now my roof should outlast me!
Barney
