Adhesive for Aluminum roof to plywood?
My husband and I are rebuilding a camper and are about to get to our roof install. We are doing a seamless aluminum roof which will be going over plywood. We want to avoid using any type of screws as ...
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Gdetrailer wrote:Re read what I wrote. You are actualy making my point.Huntindog wrote:As far as the OPs question, aluminum roofing does not need glued down, it is secured via screws around the entire perimeter, the middle floats. In fact it needs to float to allow for expansion and contraction with temperature changes
The reason most manufacturers don't use aluminum is the expansion and contraction, especially on large units. Most leaks are not from the material (whatever it is) failing, but from the sealant around various necessary penetrations failing. Aluminum because of the large amount of expansion/contraction is very hard on the sealant.... It can easily fail in the short warranty periods that RVs typically have... That costs money in warranty claims... And that is why the manufacturers have moved away from it. The flexible roofing most use now have a certain amount of "give" that is beneficial to the sealants, and the do not expand/ contract much.
Huntin'.. COST is the factor and reason, not the expansion/contraction.
Price aluminum vs the cost of EPDM/VINYL/TPO and you will quickly realize that you will save hundreds of $$.
RV industry and manufacturing is a COST driven thing, lower the cost and increase profits, RV industry like any other manufacturing industry must make enough profit to make it worthwhile to stay in business.
If one can save $100 in materials and labor per unit and you build say 10,000 of the same item per year, you now have an extra cool 1 MILLION DOLLARS in PROFITS (yeah that is $1,000,000) that now can be pocketed by the CEO and management..
That IS how real businesses work.
They don't care one bit about if it will make it past the measily 1 or 2 yr "warranty" period, they CAN afford to "fix" your broken RV under warranty because they SAVED money UP FRONT when building it.
I had an older aluminum roofed RV once... The sealant failure around penetrations is real. All of my subsequent RVs have not had aluminum, and not suffered any sealant failures.
I do not know the cost of aluminum vs the others. I do know that the sealant fails at a high rate with aluminum. That costs manufacturers money, in warranty claims and customer disatisfaction. If aluminum is more prone to failure, and the cost is equal, It is a win for the manufacturer9 (and the consumer). If it is more expensive, then it is even more so.
Again: Most leaks are NOT a result of the roofing material failing. But from the sealant failing at penetration areas
