Crankout awning for 2015 Rockwood Freedom 1970?

[sadenis]

We have the standard Dometic awning on our popup but when I travel with just my son (and not my handy tall husband), there is no way I can use the awning by myself.
Has anyone installed (or had installed) a retractable crank-operated awning like the Thule Hideway or the Solera?
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Sarah

[GalsofEscape]

I had looked at these kinds of awning and I was not comfortable with them. They are much heavier than the Dometic awning and the roof side panel where you would attach the awning may not have the structure to support these types of awnings. I was also leery of the weight pulling the roof to one side and messing with the lift system - i have broken the lift cable once when we lifted the roof with the popup not level; was not wanting to do that again.



So are you able to roll up the awning once you lower the roof? We would roll out the awning, set the legs in place and then lift the roof and then adjust the awning leg height. When packing up, we would lower the roof and then roll up the awning and stow it away. I was able to do this by myself.

[sadenis]

I could probably roll it up by myself if I dropped the roof first, but if I am leaving the camper for the day and not sure what the weather is going to be like, it would be prudent to roll up the awning. That would mean taking out the bunk end roof supports, the vertical supports on the risers, and then dropping the roof partway to put the awning away, and then putting everything back up. I would think there should be an easier solution.

I do see your point on the weight pulling it to one side. An awning that was hand-crank retractable yet had legs to the ground as opposed to attaching to the camper might help a bit on that.

Breaking your lift cable - what a drag. I hope you were able to get that fixed quickly and weren't trapped out in the middle of nowhere.

Thanks for your help. I'll still see what others have to suggest. Maybe there is a super lightweight solution out there.

[GalsofEscape]

We tied our awning down after finding it on the roof once. Never really had a problem leaving it up after that. BUT we are on the east coast and the winds don't really get to bad. We were out in the Midwest, we stopped even putting it out, just too much wind there.
The cable breaking was an adventure, but it did happen at home. The thing was, we were getting it ready for a long weekend at the beach when it broke. The dealer was able to fit us in but then a hurricane came through and the dealer had no power for a week. They did manage to get the cable replaced and we got our camping trip in, but it was down to the wire.

[kinma13]

http://www.forestriverforums.com/for...d.php?t=164412