Roof Repair and Replacement
Membrane, fiberglass and aluminum roof repair, resealing, recoating and full replacement, including decking repair and every rooftop penetration.
$3,500 to $18,000 and up
04 Service category
Roof, Slide Out and Awning in Lake Forest, CA
Roof, slide out and awning work covers the parts of a coach that open, move or sit exposed to weather: membrane and fiberglass roofs, hail impact, leak tracing and water damage repair, slide room mechanisms and seals, and awning fabric, arms and motors. Each of these is a path water can take.
Water gets into a recreational vehicle at a seam or at something bolted through a surface. It does not get in through the middle of a panel. Every roof, every wall and every floor is a sound sheet of material until somebody cut a hole in it for a vent, a fan, a skylight, an antenna, a ladder bracket, a solar mount, an air conditioner, a window, a door or a slide room, and then sealed around the hole. That sealant is a consumable. It has a service life measured in a few years under Orange County ultraviolet exposure, and when it reaches the end of that life the hole is still a hole.
The second half of the problem is that water does not stay where it entered. It runs along the top of a roof bow until it finds a low point, drops into a stud cavity, tracks down the inside of a sidewall, pools on the floor deck and finally shows itself as a stain or a soft spot that can be many feet from the actual opening. That is why chasing the stain is the most expensive way to fix a leak, and why we test from the lowest suspected point upward instead of putting a hose on the roof and hoping something shows.
Slide rooms deserve their own logic because they are the one part of the coach that has to be simultaneously weathertight and free to move. Four common mechanisms are in service and they do not fail the same way. Schwintek and Lippert In-Wall systems run vertical rack columns in the sides of the room and go out of synchronization. Hydraulic through frame systems leak fluid and lose pressure. Power Gear electric rack and pinion units strip gear teeth and shear cross shafts. BAL Accu-Slide cable systems stretch and fray their cables. Naming the system correctly is the first diagnostic step, because the same symptom means four different repairs.
Awnings are the most exposed assembly on the vehicle and the failures are dominated by two forces: ultraviolet degradation, which is slow and unavoidable, and wind, which is fast and largely preventable. A patio awning left out unattended in a Santa Ana condition will bend an arm, tear fabric at the roller, twist a roller tube or pull the rail out of the sidewall, and that last one takes a row of fastener holes in the wall with it.
OCRV Center handles all of this in the Yorba Linda shop, roughly 19 miles from Lake Forest by way of the 241 to the 91 or the 5 to the 55. Roof and water work in particular is done under cover with the coach dry, because a membrane bond, a sealant cure and a moisture reading are all worthless taken in the wrong conditions. Every repair is completed at the facility and there is no roadside option.
Everything in this category
Hail Damage Repair
Impact damage assessment and repair after a hail event, covering roof, rooftop components, sidewalls, caps and awnings, with claim documentation.
$1,500 to $20,000 and up
Water Intrusion and Leak Repair
Leak source tracing, moisture mapping, controlled water testing, and structural rebuild of framing, decking and panels that water has reached.
$750 to $15,000 and up
Slide Out Repair
Diagnosis and repair of slide room drive systems, controllers, motors, rails and structure, across the four mechanisms in common service.
$500 to $8,500 and up
Slide Out Seal Replacement
Bulb and wiper seal replacement around slide openings, including room adjustment first, track and adhesive mounted profiles, and topper inspection.
$400 to $3,000
Awning Repair and Replacement
Fabric, arm, roller, spring and motor repair or replacement on patio awnings, slide toppers and window awnings, including sidewall rail resealing.
$400 to $2,500
Common questions
How often should an RV roof be inspected and resealed?
Get eyes on the roof at least twice a year and after any trip with heavy weather or low branches. Sealant in Southern California degrades faster than the published service life suggests, because the ultraviolet load here is relentless and the surface temperature on a parked coach is extreme. Most coaches need the penetrations and the cap seams renewed every two to four years, and the schedule is set by what the sealant looks like rather than by the calendar. Cracking, shrinkage that has opened a gap at the edge, chalking or any place you can lift an edge with a fingernail means it is due.
Where do RV leaks actually start?
At penetrations and seams, essentially never in the field of a panel. In rough order of frequency: the air conditioner gasket, the roof to front and rear cap seams, roof vents and fan flanges, the skylight over the shower, the refrigerator and plumbing vents, antenna and solar mounting feet, the awning rail on the sidewall, window frames, the slide room opening, and the entry door. What makes leaks confusing is that the point where you see water inside is rarely under the entry point, because water travels along structure before it drops.
My slide will not come in. What should I do?
Do not keep cycling the switch, because repeated stall attempts are how a marginal motor becomes a burned motor and how a controller sets a fault that then has to be cleared. Check house battery voltage first, since a bank under load can sag far enough to stall a slide motor while every light in the coach still works normally. If voltage is good, most systems have a documented manual retract procedure using the override on the motor or the gearbox, and getting the room in so the coach can be moved is the priority. Then bring it to the shop for diagnosis rather than repeating the attempt.
How do I know which slide system my coach has?
Look at where the mechanism lives. Vertical toothed rails running up the sides of the room inside the opening means Schwintek or Lippert In-Wall. A ram and hydraulic hoses under the floor of the room means a hydraulic through frame system with a pump elsewhere in the coach. A single motor with a cross shaft and gearboxes driving rack gears under the room means Power Gear electric rack and pinion. Cables running to drums with a drive shaft across the opening means a BAL Accu-Slide or a similar cable system. We identify it at the estimate stage because it changes the parts, the labor and the diagnosis entirely.
Is roof, hail or slide damage covered by insurance?
Sudden and accidental damage usually is. Hail is a comprehensive claim on most RV policies, as is impact damage from a branch or a low structure. What carriers commonly exclude is gradual deterioration, so a roof that failed because the sealant was never renewed and let water in over several seasons tends to be treated as maintenance rather than a covered loss. That distinction is why documentation matters. We photograph the condition, write the damage as found, and deal with the adjuster directly. Insurance billed work may be invoiced at carrier negotiated labor rates that differ from posted retail rates.
Can an awning be repaired, or does the whole assembly get replaced?
It depends on which part failed. Fabric is a replaceable component on nearly every awning made, so a torn or ultraviolet degraded canopy comes off the roller and a new one goes on without touching the hardware. Motors, gearboxes, arm assemblies and roller tubes are also individually available on most current systems. What pushes a job toward full replacement is a bent or twisted roller tube combined with damaged arms, which is the typical outcome of a wind event, or an obsolete assembly where the parts are no longer produced.
Bring it to the shop from Lake Forest
Collision, paint, fiberglass, roof, slide and systems work, all performed at the Yorba Linda facility. Tell us the vehicle and what happened and we will schedule intake.