I wanted to beef up my step van’s Roof. It had a pretty wimpy translucent fiberglass roof. The light it gave was nice, but it was very thin. When it rained it felt like I was in a tent. So it wasn’t very reassuring and that thing in the summer would heat up like you wouldn’t believe. One sunny day this past summer I touched the metal roof supports called roof bows and they were extremely hot.

I also feared that the roof would crack or something. It was extremely thin. Like thinner than a fiberglass canoe and all bubbly on top. So winter is coming and I also wanted insulation. So I taped 1/4 cork underlayment to the roof and then I got this big roll of 12×9 or so feet of .04 aluminum.

That was like $430 or so. I also got some more roof bows to support the roof. The roof bows were 24 inches apart and then I added another inbetween. And then I riveted the aluminum to the roof. I used mostly solid Rivets but also some Sealed Pop Rivets.

Solid rivets are stronger but they are trickier and you need another person if you can’t access both sides. Pop rivets are easier and you can get one of these tools I got on Amazon. But they are not as strong or waterproof. I was going to use just sealed pop rivets which are more waterproof, but I just decided on solid rivets like used in the body of the van. The step van is held together by mostly rivets.

I didn’t cover the whole roof just the cargo area where I’d be staying. I am planning on adding a loft and raising part of the roof above the drivers area, but I wasn’t quite ready.

You can see