Best Roof Coating
Trying to decide on a roof coating for our small twelve year old Sunnybrook. The following are highly rated: Proguard, Heng's, Kool Seal, and Dicor. I would appreciate comments about any of these f...
Forum Discussion
JIMNLIN wrote:
I wouldn't draw any conclusion based on one persons bad experience with any product. Too many variables and in some cases 1000 times more folks have no issues with that product.
Years ago before rubber roof material most rv trailers came with mill finish aluminum roof material like my '84 26' fifth wheel rv trailer. Those old mill finish roofs were hot in the sun. The material came in huge rolls and was oily. This was before white aluminum material became available.
Not much in roof coatings was available back then other than Cool Seal White elastomeric. I applied 3 coats per instructions over the mill finish roof. WE kept the trailer 7 more years and no issues with it. The trailer was much cooler with the white roof. There were no leaks on the roof ...I just wanted a cooler camper and got it.
The oils on the roof material needed special attention for complete removal. I cycled the prep instruction three times. Heavy oils were used in the rolling and crimping mfg process.
Painting a vehicle or applying a roof coating takes special knowledge and mostly experience with prepping the job. The part I always hated.
Cool Seal is one of several products I have tried, each product has failed in one way or another. I also tried the big rage of bedliner of a few yrs back, it too failed and sadly when it failed it damaged the roofing underneath it, causing a tear which then proceeded to leak all winter long ruining my ceiling panels.
As I see it, each product is of dissimilar and incompatible material which has an expansion and contraction ratio that is also not compatible.
In other words, original roof expands/contracts at one rate, the fix in a can expands/contracts at a different rate. The two different rates then will stretch/shrink enough to eventually lead to the weaker material to fail.
The only way to 100% avoid dissimilar expansion/contraction rate is to use 100% the same material as the base OEM material. Oh, you might get close and lucky to find one that is similar enough for a short time but it will eventually fail.
My roof gets 100F more temps in the summer and can get weeks on end at -20F or a bit lower, that is a huge temperature swing and anything that is not compatible with that type of temp swings will fail.
