Using Pop-Rivets on a roof

[Bud]

I had to patch a metal roof on a trailer house. There was a badly rusted section about 6" area, and there were rust holes all the way thru the metal. I took a 15" X 12" piece of galvanized sheet metal, coated the whole back side with roof cement and covered that whole area. Then I put a pop rivet every 2" all the way around.

But I got to thinking about the small holes in the middle of them pop-rivets. DO THEY LEAK? I dont know?

To be safe, I covered all the rivets with roof cement too. I'll be covering the whole roof with that silver colored roof sealer, so that will help too. But I now wonder if using pop-rivets was such a good idea. Maybe I should have used screws.

To make sure it's well sealed, I'll give that section a second coat of that sealer.

[Frank]

Read this about potential for galvanic reaction:

[rbowman]

It's a little late now but they do make sealed pop-rivets for use with tanks, etc. A good coat of Henry's finest will take care of the problem.

Is the patch a low point where water is going to pool? That it rusted out suggests it is. Even with that the emulsion sealer should take care of it. However from my experience, nothing is forever and the sealer may crack or peel sometime down the road.

[Tekkie®]

Frank posted for all of us...

This would be my first consideration.

The second would be the flexing of the roof and eventual leaking. I don't know how the original roof is applied and sealed.

[gfretwell]

Once he gets it structurally sound a couple of coats of elastomeric roof coating will seal it up.

[Bud]

That web url will not do me one bit of good, since I do not have web access. Can you sum it up in a few words? And if they are referring to using aluminum rivets on steel roofing, I used STEEL rivets. The steel ones are not easy to find, but I got them. I know better than to use alum rivets on steel.