Roof Coating/Painting

[daveinfl]

Greetings my friends. It is time for me to get busy on my TM 2619. Going to retire in May ... so my goal is to have it ready to go.

Here is my issue. In the 1.5 years we have had the TM we have had a problem with consistent leaks in the roof. I have, in every case, narrowed it down to the air vents. I spent two days removing caulk from all the vents and around the A/C unit and resealed with super expensive Eternabond tape. I really cleaned around everything and thought I had done a really good job. I sanded and let things sit for a week in the garage so any water intrusion might dry. I couldn't see how anything would ever leak. But .... I left the trailer out of the garage ..... we had a Florida gulley washer. Low and behold it leaked. And it leaked from around the vents. After putting the TM in the garage and examining the tape, everything looked good except in corners and right up close to the wood riser TM uses when they mount the vents. Upon further examination, in some way water had penetrated the tape all the way around the vents. It was like a channel had develeoped all the way around. I took a razor blade and sliced a bit of the tape up close the the wood riser, and out comes the water. This was on all three vents.

So much for the $125.00 tape. So now I'm stuck because we were leaving on a trip. I quickly sliced around the vents to get the water out and let everything dry for a couple days in the garage. I found out that once the tape cured it was nearly impossible to remove. So I went to plan "b". To ensure bonding, I used 3M 5200 in case of any dampness (you can use it below waterline in a boat and it will hold). I resealed everything with that. During several outings, we didn't have any leaks. We have not gone out this year yet. But the roof around the vents looks awful because 3m 5200 is not self leveling. OK ... this is not a big deal. Not to me anyway. But it bothers my wife.

So ... I noticed the front of the front shell is looking not so great. We have had a problem with the Valspar coating pealing off. I'm not sure why. Our TM is a 2010 and we bought it previously owned. So I was thinking to make our TM look better I would paint the roof with the DICOR metal roof coating. Wrong. Too much work. I would have to take it down to bare aluminum for it to properly work. Lots of work. So I was looking at other alternatives. The Rhino ECO roof really caught my attention. It nearly puts a shell on everything (even around the vents). After this very long winded explanation, I'm just wondering if anyone has done this? I've read some really good reviews.

I would appreciate any comments or suggestions. I just don't want to have leaking issues this year.

Thank you.

Dave in Florida