April 8, 2019 - Learning Blogger and Cleaning up Marge

There is a learning curve with a new blog program so bear with me. There may be changes as I go along and figure out how things work.

After four months in Florida a lot of the things we use there will not be needed on the trip to Newfoundland this summer so I am taking them out to lighten the load. I am getting quite a pile in the garage where they will sit in my way until next winter.

Four months of sitting under oak trees in Florida left its mark on Marge's roof. I had swept and blown it off a couple of times over the winter but the pollen and mold built up. The roof needed to be scrubbed and yesterday was the day. Here is a before picture.  You can see the water streaks from the air-conditioner. These streams were brown from the pollen along the path and quite difficult to get off. The whole roof should be as white as the air-conditioner cover.

It is always a question of what to use to clean the roof. Harsh soaps run down the sides and strip off any wax. Bleach works great for removing mold and mildew but it is not compatible with rubber and vinyl materials. I recently read that baby shampoo will not take off the wax and that adding some vinegar will help get rid of the mold. So I tried it. It worked pretty well. The roof material is rough so the only way to get it clean is with a scrub brush on the hands and knees. I tried multiple brushes trying to speed up the process. The scrub brush that works the best is the old-time wooden natural bristle brush. Here is a picture after the first section was done.

I would scrub a section of the roof with the brush on a handle, rinse it off, then get down and scrub again with the brush on my hands and knees. It took three and a half hours to clean the main roof. Enough for one day.

This morning I scrubed the roofs on the three slide-outs. You can see on the above picture that they are just as dirty as the main roof. It took about an hour to do all three, not bad. I was able to scrub them from my eight foot ladder. The brush would not fit right up against the top seals so that part will just have to stay dirty. 

Next will be the project of buffing the sides and waxing them. It usually takes me a full day to do each side. I will wait on that project until we get back from California in a couple of weeks.

The joys of RV ownership.