Quote:
Originally Posted by Wavery
I would highly recommend NOT drilling through the TM roof. If you decide to do that, be sure to insert 1" long crush spacers in the roof for the bolts to go through and take all of the force of the compression when tightening the bolts. If you do not use crush spacers (sleeves), The vibration of driving down the road will cause the styrofoam in the roof to crush which will result in having to tighten the nuts farther to keep the panel secure against the roof. Over time, the roof may become severely crushed.
The square tube spacers are an excellent idea for raising the panel off the roof. However, instead of bolting the double tubes together, I would (again) recommend the VHB tape. If you double up those spacers and make them 6" long, you'd end up with 12 sq inches of surface contact with the roof (per leg). that would result in 48sq inches of VHB tape which would result in 3,360# of shear strength and 4,080# of tensile strength. That means that you could lift the entire TrailManor off the ground by the solar panel before that tape would separate.
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I agree with you about the bolts crushing the roof if they were the principal means of attachment. They are merely back up to the UV4000 Adhesive Sealant. If the sealant fails I won't have the panel go sailing away on the freeway, and I will get a failure indication when it rains as the leak will end up on the bed.
In regards to doubling up the square tubes to increase surface area I am in complete agreement. So much so that if you look at the photo closely you'll notice just that. I doubled up to increase the surface area ;-) for the adhesive.