Staples coming up under rubber roof material! - Montana Owners Club

BusyCarol · 07-03-2014, 03:25 PM

Why is it when we go to do a project there always has to be some major obstacle that pops up! Tonight we were washing the roof in preparation for putting on solar panels. Unfortunately, there are 3 staples that have raised themselves up under the rubber roofing material and are right near the edge.

Now we are trying to decide what to do...
1. Cut off the molding that holds the rubber roof down, lift the roof up and replace the staples with screws, then put the roof back down and then recaulk the molding in.
2. Pop the staple through the roof and put some sealant over it...not idea...

UGH!!! I am so frustrated right now! Even if we weren't putting up solar panels we would have to deal with this issue but it is a holiday weekend and we wanted to finish the install this weekend! Grrr!

hunts800 · 07-03-2014, 03:56 PM

My 2011 had this problem twice, once while under warranty and once when out of warranty. Keystone covered the repair both times. (Not without several phone/e-mails to customer service). Both repairs involved lifting the roof up, and replacing the staples with screws. I was told this is fairly common and "probably" would never had resulted in the staples actually poking through the roofing material.

rohrmann · 07-03-2014, 04:00 PM

If you are installing solar panels, you are obviously putting more holes in the roof, so a few more holes, properly sealed, isn't going to make much difference. I would pop the staple through the rubber, remove the staple, install an appropriate screw in place of the staple, put a piece of Eternabond tape over the hole, and after completing the solar install, caulk the patch with self leveling Dicor caulk. the patch will outlast the trailer.

BusyCarol · 07-03-2014, 05:18 PM

Good points. Steve do you remember what they did to fix the issue???

Bob, we will not be putting any holes in the roof because we have the peel and stick kind of panels and will be running the cables through an existing spot. However, we believe installing the peel and stick will void the warranty anyways so we are thinking we will pop the staple out and perform your suggested fix. We are just hesitatnt....why I am not sure...but I guess it caused us to lock up our thinking!

mazboy · 07-03-2014, 05:34 PM

get with Montana in Goshen and plan on going to the rally this fall and get it fixed then.

I would just leave the staples as they are for the time being, don't push them through the covering.

BusyCarol · 07-03-2014, 06:02 PM

I would love to be ble to go to Goshen but that is not in the cards for us. We may just leave them there until we have a chance to have it looked at.

hunts800 · 07-03-2014, 06:16 PM

They took the outer trim off, then lifted up the roof material and replaced the staples with screws, also added screws around the area. They said the roof material is not glued down so fairly easy to get up once the trim is removed. There appeared to be a metal sheath all around the outside edge under the roof material. Thats about all I was able to observe, but they did take pictures which convinced Keystone to authorize the repair under warranty.

BusyCarol · 07-03-2014, 06:21 PM

Thanks Steve for taking the time to get back to me. That is what we thought they would do under repair. Have you had any issues with the re-caulking of the side trim??? Some people told us that once they removed that side trim it was never the same. Our problem is that they probably would not be able to get us in any time soon and we were hoping to be done with this before next Friday. Oh well...that dream may have to be given up.

hunts800 · 07-04-2014, 03:05 AM

Two points - we had the trailer about 8 months after the second repair, through some heavy winds and rain during cross-country trip - no problems. Second - i would not put off using the trailer until you get it repaired. I think you could go quite awhile before the issue became a real problem. They told me it was about a four hour job when I was still arguing over who was going to pay for it.

jcurtis934 · 07-04-2014, 04:37 AM

Is using the "peel and stick super adhesive" mounts an acceptable thing to do on a rubber roof? I know the mounts work very well on fiberglass or metal...but rubber...especially since it isn't bonded to the substrate??? Have the other solar montana rigs done this as well??? Just had the questions form in the brain and thought that it might be good to ask for my own education. John

Carole · 07-04-2014, 11:25 AM

My DH, who can repair almost anything, discovered the staples coming up when our 2013 was only a few months old. Since he had repaired the same thing on our Sunnybrook, he went right to work removing the side roof trim and replaced every staple with stainless steel screws. Looks perfect and we haven't had any problem at all since. It was still under warranty, but he's somewhat of a perfectionist and knew it would be done right if he did it. Plus our dealer is 130 miles one way. Don't know why Keystone doesn't use SS screws to start with. Oh yeah, I forgot, cost.

BusyCarol · 07-04-2014, 12:24 PM

Well THANKS to everyone who responded we did some further research based on some of your suggestions and here is what we decided to do.

We cut a little cross hole in the roof because,as Bob pointed out, if we were installing solar the standard way, we would be putting holes in the roof anyways and have to use dicor to patch them. In the process of checking on the roof we found another very minor tear and it was dicor'd as well.

We truly thought about removing the side molding and lifting the roof up to replace staples with screws but then we realized that unless we were inside of some sort of structure that was not going to be a doable option as it is constantly windy at our house.

So we cut the little holes, put in screws (countersink), and then put a dab of dicor under the roof membrane and a blob on top. It is the self leveling type and worked fine. Solar panels have been laid out and are outputting power that we cannot capture yet because we do not have the rest of the system installed.

As for the jcurtis934's good question - Yes the peel and stick are fine on a rubber roof and several MOC members have them installed on their rig. In fact the panels were designed for this type of use on a rubber roof. We chose to go with that type instead of the platform type because in Montana we regularly get 30mph winds and we didn't want anything else to catch the wind on our rig. Plus they do well in shade conditions and non-optimal angles. They also add a bit of hail protection, and you can walk on them. We have been taking pictures and will post those soon for anyone who is interested.

THANKS AGAIN to everyone who responded! We really do appreciate all of your suggestions! I hope we can return the favor some day!

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