Roof Caulking removal and reseal

I had a similar situation. I removed as much as I could then laid a new bead of Dicore over it. Is that the right way? But i feel confident it will keep water out.

 

Keeping the water out is the objective. I used a putty knife on several to remove as much of the old putty as possible, it isn't an easy task but well worth the effort to make everything is sealed.

 

That lip makes a perfect gutter for water to get in even the slightest void. I would look into putting Eternabond tape over the seam and then sealing the edges with Dicor self leveling.

 

Yep , dig out the crap , wipe area with acetone . add eternabond tape . Be careful though once it's down it's down . Good luck

 

Scrape all the old caulk off that you can. Use a plastic putty knife to avoid any damage. Clean the area with brake kleen and reseal using either a self leveling Dicor or Xtrm.

 

Eternabond will work fine , read here http://www.irv2.com/forums/f258/eternabond-on-fiberglass-435623.html

 

I just did that exact repair this past Spring. I used a 5 in 1 tool to strip the old seal and used Dicor self leveling sealant to recaulk. Make sure you clean the area well, rub it all down with denatured alcohol and allow to dry before resealing.

The whole process only took me an hour to complete.

There are many YouTube videos that give direction on how to do this.

I don’t recommend using eternabond unless you have other large cracks or repairs that are needed.

 

Eternabond and Dicor is a belt and suspenders approach

I inspected a leaky 2012 trailer two years ago. It had a raised edge like the pic above. 2-3 inches of the manufacturers sealant was loose. It had leaked enough to ruin the back wall. The water had traveled down the seam and funneled right in.

 

Self leveling

 

I used self leveling on the same areas with great success. Self leveling works on horizontal surfaces not verticle.

 

Yes, self leveling. This is my results.

 

Looks amazing. It looks like you removed the side rail. is that correct? Are you going to replace it?

 

I did not remove the side rail. Just cleaned out the old seal and applied the new Dicor.

 

B&F, I just did the same Dicor sealing a few days ago. My bead size was only half your size. 20-20 hindsight and all, I wish I had made a bigger bead like you did. I lucked out that the self leveling Dicor did not run on the 9” vertical seams front and rear. It was evening and not hot, so that helped. It seems that it almost immediately skins over.

 

The main reason I used a large bead is that I knew I had plenty in the tube and would throw out any I didn’t use, so I may as well put on a bunch. Got my money’s worth!!

 

So.... I had a slightly different approach.

My *old* camper had someone goto town with silicon prior to my purchase of it.






I removed the plastic strip from the side channel, to expose the screws. I then removed all the screws, and took the side channel off:


(Note, my *old* camper had a seam down the middle, so most of my photos focused on this, I didn't take many in the way of the sides)

I scraped and cleaned all the old Butyl tape and silicon off.


I then bought NEW butyl tape, and laid it down, and put the track back over, and screwed it in. I coated the threads of the screws in Dicor when I ran them in. The Butyl tape squishes out, and forms a seal.

This is how they do it at the factory.

If I was to use eternabond, I wouldn't have bothered all the prep work, and just gone over the entire mess. (If I knew about eternabond, I would have done this too, since it was about 3 days of work. But it was 6 years ago, and the camper was my first experience).

My current camper, I don't know. I think I'd pull the trim off and just do Butyl tape again. It's in really good shape, and I like how it looks.