Anything other than silicone..

"Siliconizied" latex caulk is not really silicone. It should be removable.

I've only kept 1 trailer long enough to require a re-caulk and used Lexell, the cats meow.

theoldwizard1 wrote:
Not a "general purpose" caulk or one that you can apply layer upon layer, but butyl tape works well. It is not expensive and easily and cleaning removed.

It is designed to be used as a "bedding compound" where the item you are trying to seal can be removed in order to replace the butyl. Used on many boats around windows because of the enormous amount of effort required to remove old caulk.

Butyl is my favorite only when compressing two objects.

Not a "general purpose" caulk or one that you can apply layer upon layer, but butyl tape works well. It is not expensive and easily and cleaning removed.

It is designed to be used as a "bedding compound" where the item you are trying to seal can be removed in order to replace the butyl. Used on many boats around windows because of the enormous amount of effort required to remove old caulk.

MY professional uses Proflex and "paints" it on. Works very well!!!!

I have to say there are very few places on my coach that I'd use silicone because of how hard it is to maintain. Also, at some point almost all caulking needs to be addressed at sometime or another because the putty tape behind starts to oose in the heat and push out on the caulking. My ORV came with a product called GEO-Cell as the caulking on all sidewall penetrations. Though it doesn't have the life span silicone has, it is easy to remove carefully with a heat gun and a rounded/dulled putty knife. Then I remove any remaining goo with mineral spirits. The final cleaning is with alcohol. Then I use the GEO-cell caulk. It flows nicer than silicone with bit of a self-leveling feature but doesn'tsag. As would be expected I use Dicor on the roof.

I sure hope silicone sticks to itself because I just covered my entire TT roof in it. And then recoated it in some places.

I'm here to tell you the stuff I used sticks like you won't believe.

Grit dog wrote:


So you seal your RV exterior with silicone caulking, or replying to hear yerself speak.

Bottom line, don't use silicone, use a urethane product or something intended for the use.

Speaking of replying to hear yerself speak....:R

I never said that silicone should be used on anyone's RV. I said I used silicone for 22 years, without failures. I also said that I've switched to Dicor for the last 6-7 years, more because everyone says that's what I'm supposed to use than for any other reason.

My initial post in this thread was simply to counter the oft-heard argument that silicone won't stick to itself. In my experience, that's a false statement, proven (albeit to myself) over the course of 22 years. I never even considered that it wouldn't work until I started reading the claims on RV forums, and that was after using it for at least 10-15 years without failure. In fact, a quick google search verifies what I already know to be fact; silicone WILL stick to silicone, quite well in fact, as long as the old silicone is clean (which is required for ANY sealant, including Dicor). Will other sealants stick to silicone? Nope, nor did I ever claim such.

Use what you want, I never said otherwise.

What I posted was to point out all silicones are not the same type...not a recommendation what we need to use in fact having been in mobilehome/rv repair business I wouldn't recommend pure silicone over a product made especially as a lap sealant for rvs/etc.