INFORMATION ABOUT CARAVANS CAMPING & MOTORHOMES - TIPS HINTS & ADVICE

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What size Awning do I actually need?

Most Awnings are sold through caravan dealerships. The dealer will have a listing of the sizes of awnings he has or can get, and a reference guide from the caravan and awning makers as to the size of awning needed to fit a particular make, model and year of van. This may or may not be all that accurate, models of van change, and a dealer for one particular make may not have ALL the reference guides for other van manufacturers.

You can size for an awning yourself fairly easily. All you need is a ball of string, or a thin rope, around 12mtrs maximum is usually enough, and a means to measure the string accurately. First off park the van on a level (preferably hard) surface and level it side to side and fore and aft using your spirit level as you would for setting up normally. Feed the string or rope into the awning rail all round the van and down to ground level (see illustration) at each end of the van. An extra pair of hands is useful at this point, get someone to hold the rope touching the ground at one end of the van and gently take up any slack at the other end yourself. Mark the rope where it contacts the ground at points "A" and "B", remove it from the awning rail and measure the length from "A to B". This is the actual size of awning your van requires, it is just as simple as that. Most if not all awnings are sized in metric so measure in centimetres and quote this size as "865cms" or similar.

Porch Awnings

With Porch Awnings, the critical bit of the size is the height of the awning rail on your van from ground level. Level the van as above, and measure the height of the awning rail from ground level above the caravan door. Note that if your van has a very steep roofline "upswing" towards the rear and the doorway opening is affected by this, you may wish to take the van to your dealer when you purchase, many will advise on types or even let you try a porch in position before you commit to purchase. Try to avoid Porch Awnings that end running down across a window, acrylic windows scratch very easily under windy conditions using this type of awning. Note that some Porches are fed into the rail for one side panel and the roof, these need to be right or left handed to suit vans with doorways to the front or rear respectively. AND! just because it's smaller, it is not necessarily any easier to put up than a full size one! 8>)

How do I Put this Monster Up?

If you buy an Awning from new, there should be instructions for you to read and follow! In the case of second hand purchases, the following general details might help, nearly thirty years of struggling with various makes and sizes and you start to get an idea of what it might be about!

First off, pick a dry day and level the van, do all the other chores and then empty out the pole bag. Check to see if all the poles are there. You should have something like three front poles, one (the centre pole) has some sort of "T" piece and is usally bigger than the other two, the left hand and right hand poles. There should be two poles that will link the left, centre and right hand front poles to-gether at the top in a sort of "m" shape. There should be three poles that will run from the front poles to the side of your van, these may have suckers to go on the ends, or they may fit into attaching points attached to the canvas at or near the awning rails. There may be another two of these that act as stretchers on larger awnings, they fit to the front poles using clips. ALL of these will usually have adjusters of height or length. Try these all together, and then lay them out on the ground approximately where they will be used. There may be three short poles that fit into the front main poles to help keep the front overhang taut, Trio, Isabella and some other makers have an extra set of stretchers here to keep the overhang really taut and smart.

Next empty out the canvas bag. On small vans, the canvas may be one piece, top, front and sides combined and permanently joined. On larger vans the canvas is normally in 5 pieces, the main top and the part that fits into the awning rail, plus two zip in side panels, for the left and right, and two zip in front panels. With some makers some of these panels may be interchangeable, others do not allow for this. Enter the piping of the awning into the awning rail and start to feed the awning right round the rail. Extra hands are useful here, one to feed, one to pull. Make sure you are getting the awning right way round, it's easy try putting one up "inside out".

Awnings with zip in panels, the panels should not be zipped in at this stage. Even up canvas on the van so that it reaches the ground evenly at each end of the van, front and back. Enter the front centre pole into the canvas, and support it with front to van pole, adjusting roughly the lengths and height to suit. Ask your friendly assistant to support this structure whilst you go to the left hand front pole and do the same there, but add in the top left hand front to centre front link pole also. Tension all the adjusters roughly again, and then repeat the whole process at the right hand front corner. By this time, the awning should (with any luck) be self-supporting. Add in any front overhang supports and start to think about pegging down. If there are extra stretcher poles, add and tension those also.

On a ONE-PIECE awning peg down the four corners first, then the sides and the front, keeping the canvas as taut as you can, and tighten or adjust the poles as necessary to help. For a zip in awning, loosely peg down the four corners and the centre strip and zip in all of the panels. Then proceed as for a one-piece awning, adjusting poles and pegs as required. If you manage all this first time without falling out with your partner, phew . . .

Once you are happy that you have got it (reasonably) right, it helps to use different coloured insulating tape to mark the poles in order of assembly for future reference, and even tie short lengths of matching coloured string to the both zips of zip in panels if they are right and left handed. Taking the whole thing down is normally just the reverse of all this, and is usually much easier!

Modern Acrylic fabrics are more tolerant of being put away damp, but it is still better to dry off a wet or damp awning before storage. Over a washing line on a dry day is ideal, or draped over your stairway banister also works well. Certainly ensure an awning is completely damp free before storing long term, say over the winter close season. For repairers of awnings, see the awning repair list. You may find tent or tarpaulin or sail makers and repairers listed in your local trade pages, but you should satisfy yourself thay have experience of caravan awning repairs before you entrust them with work, the work is similar but not exactly the same.

Small repairs of broken stitching, very small tears and the like can often be accomplished using strong (nylon?) threads and two people passing the needle and thread to and fro between them, with the awning assembled but not too tightly stretched, just take the tension up. A temporary repair can often be effected using duct (duck) tape back and front of the tear until permanent repairs can be made.

The above information supplied by courtesy of www.xetronella.co.uk

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