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Roof Vent Replaced

Started by Jeremy, Aug 08, 2005, 11:51 AM

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Jeremy

The one repair that I thought I had fixed with out 85 Palomino turned out to NOT be fixed. The weekend we brought it home and were cleaning it out/painting, etc. it happened to rain. That Sunday I came out and there was a nice puddle of water sitting on the newly tiled floor. Rigth below the crank up roof vent.
 
The vent didn't look like it was sealing properly (you could still lift it up a little even when it was cranked all the way closed), but it was hard to tell if the outter seal was good or bad. I pulled off the interior trim ring, dried it as best I could and threw about a full tube of silicone caulk/sealant between the interior trim ring and the wood supports. Thought that was the end of it... til this past weekend.
 
We store the camper at my sisters place, so I ran over there to pick up some stuff from the camper for this weeks trip. I popped the back end up so I could get inside real quick and happened to notice some white goo dripping down onto the tongue end bunk.. What I thought was fixed..turned out to not be fixed. I had planned on replacing the vent eventually, and was hoping the caulk job would be a decent "bandaid" til I had a chance to order a new vent.
 
Well, the bandaid fell off. I had measured the opening diagonally and saw that it was 14", every thing I found online said for a 14" opening.. I assumed diagonal (oops). I ran to the closest RV place and picked up a vent that said "for a 14" standard opening".. Sure it looked a little big, but I'm blonde, and they didn't have anything smaller. So I picked it up. It deffinately was better than the piece of garbage that was in there already. I pulled the old vent off and found where it was leaking (on the front hinge side). I let it sit out in the 85-90 degree sun for a day or so and towed the camper back home to put the new one in.
 
By this time I knew the vents were different sizes (I'm not that blonde) and knew I would need to cut the opening. I didn't have a ton of room to move the vent forward as the door storage was limiting that. We centered it from side to side over the old opening and made adjustments to move it a little forward from front to back. Grabbed the jig saw and cut the opening.
 
Now with the bigger hole, I lost all the wood that was used to secure the screws (minus a small piece left from the front), but most of the wood was water damaged anyway. Instead of trying to notch out the foam and piece in support wood, I opted to let chemical adhesives do the job. I picked up some butyl gutter adhesive and some sheetmetal screws (aluminum roof). A heafty bead was applied to the opening and the underside of the roof vent (making sure to seal around the screw holes). What seemed like 50 screws later the new vent was in place. I put a liberal bead of adhesive around the edge and top of the flashing and made sure that all the screws were covered.
 
On the inside I filled any gaps between the roof and the inner trim ring with more adhesive and then installed the new interior trim ring. She's cooking in the sun now, so hopefully it'll be cured enough by this weekends trip.
 
I was going to go with a powered fan/vent, but given the short time to replace it, I wasn't going to overpay for a fan unit from the RV place when I know I can get it online cheaper. I manged to get the 14"x14" vent for $35 at the local store, which wasn't too far from online prices.
 
Plus now I have a nice 14"x14" vent instead of the smaller 9"x9"ish 20 year old, non sealing vent. I like the new one as it has a rubber gasket around the lid so when it's closed, it's a better seal.
 


 
in the pictures I hadn't put the adhesive over the screws, but they're covered now. I figure if I need to get the vent off, I might as well cut the roof off..haha
 
Hopefully this solves my roof leak problem.  I checked out all the other roof caulk seams and they're in good shape, so I think it was the vent seal that was letting the water in.

tlhdoc

It looks like you did a good job.  I don't think I could cut into my roof.  Drilling a hole in my water tank stressed me out.:eyecrazy: