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Awnings & Parasailing
In my new to me 2001 Marathon H3-45, first awning incident was with salon slide awning. Coming through Van Horn TX on I-10 last month. Awning starts flapping out and sounds like the top coming off the coach. Pull over, pull out the ladder, climb up and unroll it all the way out, then re-roll it in. Secured and no more problems. Coach broker had told me similar thing had happened to him.
So, couple of weeks ago, coming out of Amarillo headed west on I-40, wind blowing about 40 – 50 mph with gusts way over that, same awning decides to come out again and do the parasail routine. Flapping, making all kinds of noise.
Humm, if rolling it out and then back in worked last time, then let’s try it again. Problem was the wind was much higher than last time. Trying to balance on the side of the road, on a fold out ladder in wind gusts of about 60 mph while trying to roll out an awning that was in full sail was not something that had a high probablility of success.
A good Samariatan in an 5th wheel stopped, helped me secure the sail and advised me to go down the road to Oasis and call a service tech. The good folks at Oasis RV park were kind enough to let me pull into a space, and called the mobile service tech for me. within 30 – 45 minutes, real good guy comes out. We try and fix it, only to find broken springs. He advises to take it off and continue my trip. Someday I hope to be going through Amarillo with a long enough trailer to pick up the pieces, but I doubt it.
Mobile service guy says leave it off, over the slide out awnings are only good for trapping leaves and getting blown off in wind storms.
Any opinions to the contrary?
Charlie & Renee Slaton
2001 Prevost Marathon H3-45
Scottsdale, AZ
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9 Replies
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While you can get away without it, the advantage is it does keep out some stuff you don’t want on top of the slide.
It’s not perfect for keeping stuff out, but without it everything ends up on the slide roof and retracting the slide with stuff on the top is never a good idea.
The first time that happened it would have been a good idea to find out why. Not picking on you, but the broker who should have realized there was a problem. If you replace it, try to have a lock installed. All of my awnings on my previous coach had a little swing type hook that engaged in an eyelet when the awning was retracted so it was manually held in position in addition to the spring tension. Kind of like a belt and suspenders, but that added safety is worth it.
For future reference if the awning does blow open the chances are very good that the spring just needed another turn or two to increase the tension.
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Sorry Charlie!!:) I hated to start it out that way and can
sympathize with you. Had the same thing happen one time on a Zip Dee
non-slide and it is not fun. Like Jon said, installing a lock is the
answer and you’ll probably want to replace it. It keeps most of the
crap from getting onto the top of the slide and possibly damaging the
slide seal when sticks, pine cones or junk gets wedged into the seal.Maybe a PC member could could snatch it for you one day while
traveling and hook up with you. -
With our previous Country Coach Affinity we had the salon awning fly out in Oklahoma on I-44. Thank goodness for bungee cords, I had a half dozen short mini ones aboard.
Our awning had one L shape hook which had to have been installed too close to the end. Installed another L hook and moved the original. For the rest of our CC ownership those L hooks were checked often.
I agree with Jon, the broker should have stepped up finding the issue with hardware. The L shape hooks are nothing new and used with most brands of manual awnings. Putting the L hooks aside….… What really holds the awning to the side is spring tension. In our CC case we were advised by our salesmen the spring tension should be checked. We increased the tightness by 5 turns. This was enough to hold the awning tight along double hooks never had another problem.
Tom makes a good point about the awning keeping trash off the slide top. From the service tech opinion about leaving the awning off that is really poor advice. Marathon put that on your bus for a several reasons beside keeping the heat of the sun out of the bus.
Proper torque of the spring along with L hooks for addional safety you will be trouble free in high wind conditions.
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All,
Travel Locks for ZipDee window awnings, will not work on an awning that cover the slideroom, unless you get out the ladder everytime you want to run the room out and unhook the lock, We had the same issue with our Affinity, years ago, and solved the problem. Later seeing that Vantare and other plastic coaches had a trim plate, or right angled piece of metal creating a wind block just under the awning roller tube. this keeps the wind from coming up the side of the coach to the awining roller and forcing air to bow the tube letting air up under the tube and unfurrowing the awing fabric into a parasail.
Problem with the whole design, there is too much fabric and not enough spring tension since installer/designers are making the slideroom awning to double duty. One, for protecting the slideroom roof from debris, and the other after flipping the lock levers, allowing more fabric to unroll for a wimdow awning.
Asside from doing the wind diversion plate at the bottom of the awning tube, we were considering, trimmimg the awning down reducing the fabric mass to only cover the slideroom and forget the window shading part. Then winding the springs in the tube tighter, it would less likely billow out.Also, annother benefit to awnings over the slide room, it keeps the slideroom roof cooller. But in heavy rain, you may have to get up on a ladder a push excess pooled water off of it. Its all a trade off,
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For the big awning on the passenger side I always use a couple of heavy duty zip ties up high on the brackets for additional security.
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Hi, all this info about awnings has been helpful.
When I read “zip ties”, those thingies that you tie around the neck of a plastic bag in the grocery store came to mind. Is that what you meant? those paper-enclosed wires that you twist a few times? I use some heavy-duty ones elsewhere (keeping the black-water hose in place).
Or is a “heavy duty zip tie” something produced by the awning manufacturer? Susan
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The zip ties are made of a plastic, they come in different lengths and sizes, you get them at most hardware/Home Depot/Lowe’s type stores. They are not the twisties you find on breads.
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On my previous coach I used a length of double sided velcro, about 15″ long. Worked great and easily removed an replaced.
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Good info. There’s nothing like having your 20 foot roll out awning blowing out down I 10 in about 60 mph winds and trying to get in coiled back up. Some dummy forgot to lock it.
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