Some pics on how Eternabond ages and we found Eternabond Kryptonite

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June 12, 2020, 05:40:34 am

The pictures attached differently in this post and I could not make them inline (even after I saved the post and then modified it), so they are attached and I just referred to them.

We redid the roof seams on our RV (on our corona virus vacation since our RV trip was canceled).
The seams were in pretty good shape but they were old so we wanted to redo them.

There was 4" tape on top that looked like Eternabond. I don't know how old the Eternabond was (I don't know which owner put it on).

Last year when I checked out doing this work, a rep at the Eternabond company said that new Eternabond could be put right over the old Eternabond. However, the PVC protective layer needed to be taken off first (white color for us, can be other colors). At that time, the top layer seemed it would peel off easily (I tried a tiny bit at an edge). A picture is attached from that time (white tape with screw in middle and thin cord across the picture) - the top later was cracked and you can see the screw, but the Eternabond under the white PVC protection layer was thick and nice and gooey and still covering everything protecting it.

This month, when we went to do the work, it didn't just peel off easily like I thought it would.
We decided to make sure we got the top layer off, it would be easier to just scrape it off (multi-tool) along with however much of the gooey part came off. Since we could go over the top I wasn't worried about some of the gooey part being left behind.

The second picture shows a little bit pulled up at a 90 degree angle from the roof. The pictures don't really show it well... but the grey part in the middle of the picture is the underside of the white part.

The third picture shows a chunk scraped off (manually at that time). You can see the grey streaky stuff left behind, this is the part that doesn't come up well. We tried a couple products on it just to see with no success.

However - Kryptonite for Eternabond is the sun. We had cleaned the Eternabond off pretty well other than the last smears, and when we went back the next morning to work on the roof. Places where the gooey smears were very thin now could be easily scraped/sanded off, slightly thicker parts were still gooey (wild guess here, 1 mm dried up, 3mm still gooey).

Note: Even what looked like deeper cracks in the white protective layer had a thick layer of gooey Eternabond protecting everything, so it really does last a long time.

The take away - make sure your UV protective layer stays in good shape because that is what keeps Eternabond eternal.

We did things the LD way with our reseal. We took the old sealant completely off, cleaned and prepped the area, while checking the screws (tightening a couple handful that were loose, most only 1/4 of a turn, replacing a handful - the vast majority were still good and tight). We then put down new sealant in that wide 1.5" - 2" path the mother ship does. And then Eternabond primer down (the roof is pretty oxidized so the primer is recommended) and 6" Eternabond. Probably overkill but good for another 10-20 years.

Jane

Re: Some pics on how Eternabond ages and we found Eternabond Kryptonite

Reply #1 – June 12, 2020, 01:02:21 pm

I put Eternabond on 7/8 years back. It looks nothing like your pictures. I wonder if it was Eternabond.

Re: Some pics on how Eternabond ages and we found Eternabond Kryptonite

Reply #2 – June 12, 2020, 01:09:26 pm

"I wonder if it was Eternabond."
---
The sealant didn't look like Eternabond to me, either; there were/are quite a few different roof sealing products. Maybe the extreme weathering masks the identity of the product?

Re: Some pics on how Eternabond ages and we found Eternabond Kryptonite

Reply #3 – June 12, 2020, 01:43:50 pm

Quote from: Don Malpas - June 12, 2020, 01:02:21 pm

I put Eternabond on 7/8 years back. It looks nothing like your pictures. I wonder if it was Eternabond.

Having inspected twenty plus-year-old Eternabond, used on commercial buildings, the photos do not look like it.
Our LD's ten-year-old Eterabond tape has been outside the entire time and is still intact.
Perhaps the hot SoCal sun doesn't include the Kryptonite spectrum, could be it be an Arizona thing?

Roofing tape is not a new invention and there are other manufacturers of it, the shown tape maybe another brand.

Larry

Re: Some pics on how Eternabond ages and we found Eternabond Kryptonite

Reply #4 – June 12, 2020, 06:52:31 pm

I am not 100% sure it is Eternabond and I was skeptical when we started to work with it. I went back and forth in my belief of what it was as I worked with it and ended up believing it was Eternabond. It sure acts like Eternabond - very difficult to get off (scraping as much off as you can still leaves a gooey residue, thinner than many adhesive residues but very different as it feels like "brand new" gooeyness.

I had sent a message to the previous owner via this forum to see if I could get confirmation about a week ago but I hadn't heard back. I just tried to reach out a couple of other ways, if I hear back I will add that info here.

However, the principles are the same of what we had and Eternabond - UV protectant layer on top and underneath gooey stuff that is extremely hard to get up and stays freshly "gooey" - only got hard or dried up if there was that last residual bit and it got exposed to strong sunlight.

You can see the big difference between the first picture I posted and the following 2 that were taken 1.25 years later. There was also a significant difference between that first picture and what it looked like in 2017 when we got the LD - looked even white then. That top layer seemed to disintegrate some since we owned it though the underneath layer was still going very strong. The RV was in southern AZ (though just east of Tuscon so not as strong of sun) so it has had more than it's share of the AZ sun.

The southern AZ sun is brutal. Very different beast than the CA sun (I lived in CA both southern and northern for a couple decades). In Phoenix, we have what I call the Blare/Broil factor (kind of NE wind chill in reverse).

Examples:
-- In Phoenix, during the summer, you often don't need to heat the water for showers - it comes out of the ground hot

.
-- Other people need a heat gun, not us - just sit it out in the sun in the summer - our own personal heat gun.

-- Things melt in the car, such as plastic bottles of hand sanitizer - I had to take ours out last week as it was turning into a lump of twisted plastic.
-- Your phone gives you a "Shutting down because it is too hot" message when it is time for an A/C tuneup (it can tell before you can).

I went to college in Tucson when I was young, but Phoenix is much worse.
In Tucson the summer sun felt good - it warmed your skin like a fire on a cold day and I remember in southern CA climbing into a car that had been sitting in the hot summer sun all day and leaving the windows up as it felt good like that Tuscon sun.

.
In Phoenix it like having your skin a couple inches from an electric oven broiler, difficult to tolerate for long. We don't get it every day of the summer, but when it is out we aim for the shade and try to stay indoors.
So I would expect roofing materials to deteriorate faster in the AZ sun - like rubber and batteries do.

I could not find any old pictures of Eternabond with an internet search - Larry, do you have any sitting around?

Jane

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June 12, 2020, 05:40:34 am

Reply #1 – June 12, 2020, 01:02:21 pm

Reply #2 – June 12, 2020, 01:09:26 pm

Reply #3 – June 12, 2020, 01:43:50 pm

Reply #4 – June 12, 2020, 06:52:31 pm

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