Roof, Slide and Awning Questions From Hacienda Heights Owners

Feel it and look at the edges. EPDM is a rubber membrane, it chalks white on your hand, and the edges are held by a terminating bar with lap sealant. TPO is also a membrane but it does not chalk, it is usually brighter white, and it heat welds rather than glues. Fiberglass is a hard shell with no membrane and it will not flex under your palm. Aluminum announces itself by seam pattern and rivets.

Three different repairs. Reseal replaces lap sealant at penetrations and terminating bars, which is maintenance and sits low in the band. Recoat lays elastomeric coating over a sound but weathered membrane, $750 to $4,500 or more, and it buys years, not decades. Replace strips the membrane, replaces wet decking and installs new material, $3,500 to $18,000 or more. Chalk by itself is normal on EPDM and does not mean replacement. What forces replacement is wet decking, seams that have opened, or a membrane gone brittle enough to crack when it is lifted.

Moisture mapping. A meter reads through the ceiling panel and the interior walls on a grid, and the wet field is traced back to its high point, because water runs and stains appear downhill from the entry. Then the roof is checked at every penetration, seam and edge, and suspect areas are flood tested or pressure checked. Moisture and leak detection runs $285 to $1,200.

Fifteen to thirty on a typical coach, more on a large fifth wheel. Roof vents, a bathroom fan, one or two air conditioner gaskets, the refrigerator vent, plumbing vents, the antenna base, solar entries, a satellite mount, ladder mounts, running light bases, the front and rear cap seams and both terminating bars. A reseal covers all of them, because doing four and leaving twenty is how the next leak starts. Old sealant is cut off rather than layered over, the substrate is cleaned to the membrane, and new sealant is tooled.

Dicor self leveling lap sealant is for horizontal penetrations, and Alpha Systems equivalents work the same way. It flows and self levels around a flange, and it stays serviceable, so it can be cut off and redone next time. Eternabond is a butyl tape with an aggressive adhesive, and it belongs on seams, terminating bars and long linear repairs where a mechanical bridge is what the joint needs.

Hail bruises the membrane and dents the roof structure and the air conditioner shrouds around it. On TPO the visible damage is often modest while the substrate underneath is punched, so the roof reads fine from the ground and leaks six months later. What gets inspected is the decking under each impact by feel and moisture reading, the fan and vent domes, the skylight, the air conditioner shrouds and every seam. Hail damage roof repair runs $1,500 to $18,000 or more and it is a comprehensive claim.

Usually the controller and the sync condition rather than the motors. Schwintek drives each side with its own motor on a vertical rack, and if one side loses count the room walks out crooked and the controller stalls it to protect the rack. The fix starts by putting the controller into learn mode so both sides re establish their travel limits, then checking rack teeth for stripping, nylon guides for wear and motor amperage draw side to side. Schwintek slide repair runs $750 to $7,500.

Drifting in overnight is almost always internal, either cylinder seals bypassing or a valve body that will not hold. Lippert through frame hydraulic systems run a pump, a manifold with solenoid valves and one or two cylinders per room, and HWH systems are laid out similarly. The test is to isolate the cylinder from the manifold and see which side holds pressure. External leaks stain the frame and are easy. Internal bypass leaves everything dry and still moves the room.

Rack and pinion carries the room on toothed rails driven by a gear motor under the floor, so the failures are stripped teeth, a sheared gear, a bent rail or a dead motor. Cable slides pull the room in and out with cables over pulleys, so the failures are stretched or frayed cable, a seized pulley and a room that goes out of square because one cable stretched further than the other. Cable systems need tension set correctly on both sides or the room binds.

They do different jobs. The wiper seal is the flat blade that sweeps the sidewall as the room travels, and it keeps water off the top and sides while the room is out. The bulb seal is the hollow gasket that compresses when the room is closed, and it is the seal that matters when the coach is parked and it rains. Water at an inside corner usually means a bulb seal that has taken a set and no longer compresses, or a corner where two seal runs do not meet.

It matters. A stretched topper that pools holds standing water above a seal on fabric that is no longer shedding, and it dumps that water straight into the room when you retract. Pooling also loads the roller and the arms, which is how a topper tears at the hem. Slide out topper replacement runs $450 to $1,800, which is cheap next to a slide room floor rebuild. Toppers also keep debris off the roof of the room so the wiper seal is not dragging grit across the sidewall every time the room travels.

Yes, on most Carefree and Solera units the fabric is a serviceable item. The roller comes down, the old fabric slides out of the roller groove and the rail groove, and new fabric is cut to length and fed in with the correct valance and hem. Awning fabric replacement runs $400 to $2,500 depending on length, whether it is vinyl or acrylic, and whether the unit is manual or powered. A tear at the roller is worth checking against the roller tube itself, because a bent tube chews new fabric.

Wind damage usually runs past the fabric. A bent lead arm means the arm assembly, and often the shear pin, the pivot casting and the mounting rail behind it. That rail attaches to sidewall framing, so an arm that levered against the coach can crack the sidewall and open a water path, which gets checked before parts are quoted. Awning arm and mechanism repair runs $500 to $3,500 and full awning replacement $900 to $5,500. Retract the awning whenever you leave the site. No repair is cheaper than that habit.

No hum means the motor is not being commanded or not being powered, which points upstream. The sequence is fuse, wall switch, control module, then the wind sensor if the unit has one, then measuring voltage at the motor leads while the button is held. If voltage is present and the motor is silent, it is the motor. If voltage is absent, it is the switch, the module or the sensor.

Spongy means the plywood has taken water and the lamination has let go, and it does not recover by drying out. On a slide room the floor is structural: it carries the room's weight on the rails and it holds the wiper seal geometry, so a soft front edge changes how the room seals and accelerates the leak. Slide room structural repair runs $1,500 to $7,500 and subfloor and water damage restoration $750 to $15,000 or more. The source is usually the wiper seal, the topper or the front corner.

Plan on the middle of the three business day to two week band for a straightforward membrane job, and longer once decking is involved. Full roof replacement is $3,500 to $18,000 or more. What pushes it out is wet decking found after the membrane comes off, an air conditioner or fan that has to be replaced rather than reset, a skylight at $350 to $2,500, and OEM parts. Maxxair and Fan Tastic vent components are usually on the shelf.