Awning problems on slides

[rohlingerrv]

Has anyone had any problems with the awnings over the slides on the flagstaffs holding water when it rains? If so, is there an adjustment that can be made?

[yvesm]

One of our awnings appears to be hooked up to the camper crooked, so it holds water on one side. Its something else I need to fix or have the dealer fix under warranty (gook luck to me on that)

[NWJeeper]

The awning over our long slide will hold water if there is enough of it. No adjustments that I know of, they are self tensioning. After a heavy rain we will slightly close the slide to dump the water and then re-open it. No big deal.

[caper]

First off, I am a believer in the slide toppers, what ever problems they may cause are far outweighed by the benefits.

The two main problems with the slide toppers are:

1. They flap in the wind.
2. They tend to form a water pocket in the middle.

I fabricated a support structure out of 3/4" PVC pipe which largely solves both problems.

Here is a view of the topper with the support in place. The support is higher in the middle and the water flows off to the outer ends.



Here is the view under the slide topper.



The materials list is as follows:

10 3/4" PVC T's
12 3/4" PVC Caps
12 16" lengths 3/4" PVC pipe
4 30" lengths 3/4" PVC pipe
1 5 1/2" length 3/4" PVC pipe
2 4" lengths 3/4" PVC pipe
2 3" lengths 3/4" PVC pipe

The pieces are all just pressed together the cross sections could be glued if desired. It does require a ladder to slip it in place. This is probably not a good solution for a 1 or 2 night stay, but it does eliminate the water pocket and 90% of the flapping in high winds.

I have tried a beach ball under the topper, but they tend to blow away in high winds and leave the end really suseptable to flapping.

Hope this is of some use to you all.

I got this information from an other Rockwood site. Hope it helps with your problem.

[phoneman06]

There is an adjustment on how much tension is on the awning. I had the same problem with mine when I bought it. I gave mine about 4 more turns and it took care of the problem. If it is a Dometic they recommend 13 turns of tension. Here is a link to the manual on how to do it.

A&E SlideTopper Adjustment

[BigRed]

Caper, nice set-up and thanks for pictures and parts info !! Ive messed with the tension adjustments before and come out on the losing end every time !! Soooo I know my limits !! The adjustments can be easy but just not for me (a nuckle-head). Thanks again !!

[RhoZeta]

Caper, really nice mod!!
Wondering about the effectiveness of adding one or possibly two "U" shaped pvc pieces that go over the top of awning attached to the setup you have. I am thinking they would keep the edges of awning from even starting to flap?
Also, if you would like, I have a very cool "remove before flight" streamer that you could hang from that awning support or from the wall next to the slide switch so that it would be really hard to retract the slide with that in place.

[Boondoggle]

Given this topic, what brand would someone recommend? Our TT did not come with the slide toppers and would love to have them.

[svamarlins]

We just bought our FR Surveyor 305 and noticed while camping a few weeks back that some models have these slide awnings....Anyone know if or has anyone done a mod and installed this on their TT. We have 2 slides and I think this would be really great to have

[bikendan]

by awning, i think you mean slide cover or topper.

we have a 14' slide topper on our slideout and we added because of all the debris and sap that fell on top of the slide's roof.
haven't had a problem with it after 3 years of use.

[svamarlins]

Yes sorry thats exactly what I mean. How hard was it to install and where did you buy all the items? Any help is greatly appreciated.
thanks

[cfsoistman]

Dometic Corp - A&E Slide Topper - Dometic A&E RV Awnings - Camping World

Just for information. There are numerous places to make a purchase of these toppers.