My first roof sealant repair

[crk112]

Upon inspection of the roof on my TT today, I noted an area on the back left with a gaping hole in the sealant. We've been in a drought for several months, but of course just yesterday we got nearly an inch of rain... and just a few weeks ago brought the camper home 100mi in the pouring rain. The left rear corner of my TT is the bathroom, and directly under this spot is the back wall of the shower. So far no water observed inside, but I'm guessing to be thorough I need to take shower walls off to verify?

Going off the wealth of knowledge on this forum, I went out and got some Dicor self-leveling sealant with which I plan to fill this hole once I clean the area with soap and water and a gentle brush scrub.

Since this is the first time since owning my TT that I've found an issue with my roof sealant, and thus my first roof sealant repair, I wanted to put this out there in case there's any additional wisdom I'm forgetting.

I really appreciate having this forum as a source of guidance and knowledge, and I really appreciate when experts lend their time to weigh in.

[wiredgeorge]

Buy some NON self leveling Dicor and cover the hole. Self Leveling will slide down like what happened already. You might clean the Dicor off a bit where it slid into the gutter track.

[chuckster57]

Self leveling will work, but I agree clean it and fill it!!

[wiredgeorge]

If you put self-leveling Dicor on a side where it can run down the side of the camper it will on the first hot day. I had a Forest River toy hauler previously and the PO took it to his dealer for complete sealing. They use self-leveling Dicor on the side; around the windows and side seams and it ran and looked terrible. I cleaned off with Naptha and it would run again. After a few weeks of repeated cleaning there was enough of the Dicor gone where I resealed the windows with the proper product.

[crk112]

Good morning all!

I see the point about self-leveling versus non-self-leveling for this particular application, and I don't mind having a tube of each. So I picked up a tube non-self-leveling dicor this morning and got to work. I attached a few more pics here to show my progress and the end result.

I was concerned about damaging the roof itself with any tools, and I found I was able to remove the old sealant by hand. I was pleased to see once I opened it up a little that it doesn't seem like a place water would necessarily penetrate "into" the camper if it runs down the inside of that trim tube... (I hope I'm right about that!)

Being my first roof sealant repair I think I'm happy with the result... and the light soap/water scrub really brought to light how badly I need to wash the rest of the roof.

What's a common way to cap off the dicor tube so I can still use it later? For now I've got the tip wrapped in kitchen plastic wrap.

Thanks again for your responses!

[chuckster57]

You did good!!

I use blue painters tape to “seal” the tip of the Dicor tube. It slows it way down, shop I was in before we put it in the fridge.

[sourdough]

That looks much better than it did prior to you doing the repair. Old dicor can come off really easy (peel off) or sometimes stick but if you're careful and don't use sharp metal objects you can usually get nearly all of it off.

When inspecting you can usually tell if those little "holes" and cracks are going to be serious or cosmetic. I take a bright flashlight up top with me when I see those things and peer into them. Usually you can tell if it was just a bubble or something and there is still a layer of dicor under it. If you see roofing, metal, a screw etc. you need to do something "now" and look to make sure water didn't penetrate somewhere.