RV Lifestyle & Repair Editors

How to Determine Which Type of RV Roofing Material You Have

RV Lifestyle & Repair Editors
Duration:   2  mins

Description

To extend the lifespan of your RV’s roof, you should complete maintenance at least once a year, which involves cleaning and treating the rubber membrane that keeps the RV interior cool and dry. It’s important to note, though, that not all roofs are outfitted with the same RV roofing material.

There are three main types of RV roofing material, and each must be cleaned, treated and sealed a little differently. In this lesson, we teach you how to determine which kind of RV roofing material is on your unit, so you can be sure you’re using the proper cleaning materials, sealants and techniques to get the job done right.

Quick and easy way to classify your RV roofing material

Since the invention of the RV, there have been essentially three generations of material used on the roofs of most RV models: EDPM, TPO and Superflex. All three are distinct in their appearance, so it isn’t too difficult to tell which kind of material your RV has, if you know where to look.

To help you take the guesswork out of the process, RV expert Dave Solberg teaches you a clean and simple method for determining which kind of RV roofing material your specific model utilizes. He shows you how to detach your RV roof vent so you can easily find the underside of the roof material.

Once you know which material you’ve got, the rest is a snap. Just clean, treat and seal the RV roofing material according to the specified directions, and you can sleep peacefully knowing your RV roof will hold up as far as the wheels can take it!

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To properly clean, treat and seal a rubber membrane on top of the roof, you need to know what kind of material is up there. There's three basic generations of rubber membranes. The first one that came out in the late eighties was an EPDM is called, and it basically started out as a black rubber membrane like you see here and then one side of it was chalked white. The second generation then was a TPO where you would have either a TPO or alpha system. I've got white on both sides of it, I might even have a fleece-lined on the one side of it so identifying the proper material is important.

And the way you can do this once it's already on the unit, we've taken just We're back in the back And we're going to take this vent shroud off here. And this way we can see the backing of this material. the way this unit was built when that material is brought over the top, it covered this hole, they simply cut an X in here and you can see this additional flap. So just take this shroud out And we see here, we got a white on the front but we have black on this backside here. So this is telling me this is a older style EPDM.

So I'm going to have to use either the Dicor or Camco or whatever type of sealant that specific to that EPDM if we were white on the backside here or fleece with white then we know we have either the TPO or the newer alpha system. Again, each one of those will take a different solution to treat and a different sealant. So it will adhere to it very important to find out the type you have.

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