Solar Panel comes off roof.

[Shirley]

A woman & child were killed when car swerved to miss a solar panel that had blown off a caravan roof, all panels should be mechanically fixed as well as sikaflex.

[Dot]

Where was this Shirley? Just saw it was in Tassie, what a tragic accident.

[Shirley]

Yes, terrible accident & over the last 15 yrs I have read so many times where people have said that you only need to Sikaflex solar panels to a roof, anyone with them only stuck on need to rethink the application, one blew off a caravan in FNQ awhile ago, fortunately it missed the following car but the bloke didn't even stop was oblivious to what had happened.

[Newcastle George]

Shirly, was the panel in question only held on by Sikaflex or insufficient screws/rivets?

George

[T1 Terry]

If it was properly mounted with Sikaflex or Selleys Armourflex, the roof would have come off along with the solar panel. These adhesives hold the sides on busses, coaches and high speed trains with no mechanical fasteners as well as the roof on most cars built after 2000
Either the surface was not correctly prepared ready for the adhesive, insufficient area of adhesive or it was attached with a silicon type adhesive and not a Silyl Modified Polymer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silyl_modified_polymers as is Selleys Armourflex and Bostik/Simson 70-03 and 05 or Sikaflex 11FC or SC polyurethane.
We did have some supposed to be flexible panels produced by Q Solar that actually were fairly rigid and later tended to roll themselves up when heated and cooled while sweating out some sort of release agent that was used during production. Didn't have any actually come off and they were only 500mm square by a few mm thick so never a risk as a flying projectile.
The roof material on the average caravan is around 1mm thick aluminium sheet, a self tapping screw or rivet sure isn't going to improve the attachment point but will create a water entry point because the two materials expand at a different rate. Many caravan roofs are not actually attached to the van frame, only along the edges .... no idea how these things are allowed through rego but we actually end up attaching the skin to the frame with Armourflex before adding the lengths of aluminium angle the solar panels are mounted with ... this greatly increases the strength of the roof.
We have attached solar panels to RV's for the 10 yrs or more and never drilled holes in the roof to hold them down, just glued down properly using a quality adhesive like Sikaflex in the early days, then Simson and now Selleys Armourflex. The only panels we have ever had come off were semi flexible panels that were glued to Lexan Thermoclear and this was very rare and generally to do with a reaction between the release agent used when producing the Thermoclear. It actually requires a cutting blade on a multitool to cut the Armourflex between the aluminium mounting rail and the RV roof to get it off and it will hold on to the last millimetres, no hope of it ever separating from the roof any other way.

T1 Terry

[T1 Terry]

A woman & child were killed when car swerved to miss a solar panel that had blown off a caravan roof, all panels should be mechanically fixed as well as sikaflex.

Ummm...... not actually good advice Shirley as I mentioned in the previous post. What is really needed is a proper understanding of just what the installer is doing when they attach the panels.
Far too many untrained people employed to install accessory equipment at RV yards is going to lead to even more serious accidents. Toolboxes falling off, mounting spare wheels and toolboxes on the rear of the van to reduce towball weight creating the pendulum effect and causing many a caravan roll over ..... mounting additional water tank behind the rear axle without non return valves in the lines allowing all the water to flow from the front tanks to the back most tanks while going up a steep hill and actually creating negative downforce on the towball resulting in loss of control of the tow vehicle .... There are so many dangerous practices in the RV industry that really need some official clamping down on to save accidents etc, but I doubt it will ever happen

T1 Terry

[Dot]

What made Petel's panel blow off. He didn't know it had taken off either .

[Shirley]

Terry , guess the problem is, as you posted in people not really knowing how to prepare the surfaces for the installation.

I think the time is coming when you won't be able to build your own RVs or if you can it will be very hard to find insurance for same. In the last few mths., I have read several times where bike racks have fallen off & again the people where oblivious to the fact that had happened.

[pet-els]

What made Petel's panel blow off. He didn't know it had taken off either .

Mine was off the loading board of the Iveco, it was the rivet/ bolts that gave way. All panels on the 5'er are Sikaflex fixed and are now three and a half years old and travelled about 60k and all holding OK.

PeterH

[T1 Terry]

What made Petel's panel blow off. He didn't know it had taken off either .

Mine was off the loading board of the Iveco, it was the rivet/ bolts that gave way. All panels on the 5'er are Sikaflex fixed and are now three and a half years old and travelled about 60k and all holding OK.

PeterH

Well, actually Shelleys Armourflex rather than Sikaflex. We changed to Armourflex (release at around 90*C) because the Sikaflex lets go in the heat (around 60*C) that can be experienced in the summer extremes when the sun shines directly on the aluminium angle and is affected by UV light causing it to powder on the surface and the white turns yellow. The Bostik/Simson 70-03 and 05 (release at around 125*C) have a much higher release temp but not really required for this purpose and we found both the Sika and the Simson required special primers on some surfaces where the Armourflex just needs it to be oil free and a roughened surface to adhere. After a 20mm bead is fully cured, 3mm thick aluminium will bend at the adhesion lines rather than the joint separating and the aluminium will actually tear before the joint lets go, tough enough for me and certainly tough enough that the roof material would tear off well before the Armourflex let go ..... that includes the fibreglass coolroom panel material and most definitely the aluminium skinned coolroom panels.

T1 Terry