How and When to Walk on Your RV Roof
RV Lifestyle & Repair EditorsPeople ask all the time if it’s safe for them to walk on their RV roof to do maintenance or otherwise, and the truth is there is no clearcut answer. Whether or not you can walk on your RV roof depends on the make and model of your vehicle, and the type of support the roof offers for one or more persons.
Oftentimes there may be something wrong with your roof vent or AC unit, and it’s necessary to get up on the RV roof to diagnose the problem, so it’s important to know whether you can walk safely on the RV roof or if you’ll need a ladder. In this lesson, we teach you when it’s okay to walk on your roof and talk about some of the ways you can do so safely and without doing any damage to the components on your RV roof or the roof itself.
Tips for walking on an RV roof
So we know that being able to walk on an RV roof depends upon the kind of structural support the roof offers, but what separates a strong roof from a weak one. Dave Solberg discusses some of the differences, from the framework to the placement of components such as roof vents and AC units. You’ll discover why it’s generally unadvised to walk on the RV roof of most cheaper models, and learn where to look for info on your specific model.
Once you’ve learned whether you can walk on your RV roof, Dave shows you how to go about navigating the weak points on a roof, especially spots around the edges of vents and other components. You don’t want to risk cracking supporting materials or splitting a seam in the roof, so pay attention to the way Dave avoids trouble areas as he walks from front to back of the RV. Utilize these expert tips the next time you walk on your RV roof, and you should have no trouble doing any maintenance work on your vehicle!
Quite often I get the question, "Can I walk on the roof of my RV?" And it really depends on the type of RV. The cheaper the units that are made with wood are not gonna have as much structure or cross-members up on the roof and you don't want to get up on top of those. A lot of those manufacturers will even have a sticker on the back that says, "Nobody up on the roof or a limit of 100 or 150 pounds," or something like that. Now you do go to NASCAR races and see tons of people up on top of roofs. And a lot of those will have them reinforced.
But what you want to be careful of is when you're walking up on a roof, first of all, it could be very slippery. You want to have good footing on it. It's not a good idea to walk on a wet roof, but as also as you're walking around here, stay away from any of the vents because those are going to have cutouts and they won't have a lot of support around it, so you want to stay kind of out away from the vents. Don't get too close into here, put too much weight there stay on the little bit, out to the outside. Now, you will have cross members generally along the edges of your air conditioner, but you can see here, and I don't have a lot of support right here.
So I want to make sure I stay a little closer to the edge because I've got some support on there, but not too close to the edge. And just as you come back to the back, you'll see some seams in here and again stay away from the vents. There are several units that you can walk around up on the roof, but you need to be very careful and you need to know what that roof is made of.
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