hello experts. I have found mention of this issue but other than the tea towel flung up there, no real solution offered.
Heavy dew or light drizzle is the worst, the water runs off the pop top onto the tin skin below at either end. Chinese water torture (she said). And the tea towel does work, but if you are well set up and the roof is in good shape you will (should) need 4 tea towels. For the newbys and hard top owners, the water runs off the sides of the roof landing clear of the van, and at the ends it seems to run to one or both corners.
I had tried some self adhesive rubber patches, depending on circumstances they were, useless, better than nothing to very excellent. It all depended on the angle, wind, quantity, day of the week and phase of the moon.
I was considering something to direct the runoff from the ends to the sides. Such as a channel across the vertical edge of the end of the pop. I once saw what I though was channel shaped rubber seal at the bottom edge of the Pop roof. Apparently an aluminium gutter will look @#$T.
I also considered a strip (rubber, aluminium, silicon???) along the top edge to direct water to the sides. General advice of course for all caravans is avoid water running down the sides as it increases the risk of seal failure for doors and windows. In my case the water will land on the solid section at the top of the wall and still drain front and rear of the lower roof section.
I searched the recent caravan show for inspiration.... nothing. Asked various sales people. No idea, never heard of it being a problem.
So, apart from tea towels how do the rest of you survive.
Run a ridge of silicon all around the roof top attach a small (3mm) stainless steel chain onto a corner that has a small gap for water to run out of the silicon dam around the roof - water will run down the chain just like a downpipe to wherever the end of the chain is attached. A bit hill-billy but it works.
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Possum; AKA:- Ali El-Aziz Mohamed Gundawiathan
Sent from my imperial66 typewriter using carrier pigeon, message sticks and smoke signals.
Every join on the pop top roof and caravan top must be silicon sealed...roof to edge, edge corner ridges and caravan top edge to folding sides. I check mine annually and seal with silicon as required...never a leak even in the heaviest of rain and never heard of leaks from others until now. Have a very close inspection of the pop top and caravan top edge...a pin hole is enough for leaks.
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Cheers, Richard (Dick0)
"Home is where the Den is parked, Designer Orchid Special towed by Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited"
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Funny but I had a drip noise in our house fire above our bedroom ended up being the tv areal .Mostly in misty rain my fix was an old flyscreen door under the tv areal made people look twice if they had to work up there lol . Fixed the problem . In our van I was out last night looking for the drip . Mine comes of the solar panels as mine are 100 mm of the roof . Ponds then drips but always in a different spot from never being level the same way . One day I will sika a small piece of rope to the panel and to the roof . And call it my supper power generator .
thanks for your replies, I am trying to avoid my usual agricultural fixes, and I DONT have a leak issue. The problem with a chain (or rope) is when the roof is down I then have 500mm of chain flapping in the breeze or bunched up under the pop top, damaging the roof below.
A permanent tea towel might have to be invented, along with an invisible gutter.
When we owned our pop top it used to drip all night and we found a piece of string taped onto the roof at both corners solved the problem. Put the roof down and pull the string off until the next rain or heavy dew was forecast
