The entire reason you use an RV or camper van is because you want sturdy protection from the elements and a bit of comfort while you’re on a camping or road trip. A brand new RV is plenty strong, but as time goes on, you may need to put in a little extra work to keep that roof properly sealed and shored up against elements like rain and dirt. There are various types of liquid sealant you can apply to the roof of your RV to protect it, though if you’re looking for quick, cost-effective mod opportunities, you may look toward the can of Flex Seal sitting in your garage.
If Flex Seal’s popular advertising campaigns are to be believed, it’s a wondrous substance that can safely seal up anything and everything. The reality of the matter is that, while Flex Seal can make for a good short-term option for patching up and protecting your RV’s roof, it may not be the best choice for long-term protection due to the way this material is formulated. Nevertheless, opinions vary heavily between users, and there are pros and cons for using Flex Seal to coat your RV roof.
Flex Seal is quick and easy to apply
One of the big perks of Flex Seal, both as an RV roof sealant and in general, is that it’s fairly easy to use. Just climb the ladder up to your RV’s roof, pop open the can, dip in a brush or roller, and apply it directly to the surface you want to coat, provided the said surface is dry and clean. When the liquid dries, it becomes a rubberized coating that’s naturally waterproof and weatherproof, with some inherent UV resistance to protect against occasional bouts of heavy sunlight.
Since it’s easy to apply and dries uniformly, you can apply Flex Seal to your RV’s entire roof with little difficulty and it should be good to go for a little while. Even if your RV’s roof had some small holes in it before, the Flex Seal should plug them entirely, keeping any water from regular rainfall from seeping into the cabin. An article on Flex Seal’s website about treating leaky RV roofs does advise that you should apply multiple coats of Flex Seal for best results, and that you should wait at least 24 to 48 hours for one layer to properly cure before you apply another.
Flex Seal isn’t rated to last long-term
Given all the stated benefits of Flex Seal, it seems like using it to coat your RV roof would be an absolute good. However, based on feedback from certain camping and RV enthusiasts, there’s an important quantifier to those benefits: Flex Seal isn’t the best choice for a long-term fix.
As some users on the r/Camper subreddit explain, while Flex Seal does have some UV resistance baked into its formula, resistance isn’t quite the same as being completely impervious. Intense, prolonged exposure to bright, hot sunlight can gradually cause your RV roof’s Flex Seal coating to bubble and flake off, reopening any holes that were already present in the roof and allowing moisture to slip under the coating. Even if your RV isn’t parked in an especially hot locale, it could start to break down eventually if it’s passively soaking up heat over the course of a year.
In absolute fairness, other users in this same Reddit thread say they’ve used Flex Seal on their RV roofs and had no problems for up to several consecutive years, so this could be a case-by-case concern. The bottom line is that you definitely can use Flex Seal on your RV’s roof, but you should keep an eye on it, especially during the hot season, and be prepared to reapply if it starts to wear out.
