Electric awning deletion

ChopperBill wrote:
With the winds the other day came biggest rain here I have seen. All the electrics came in and the manuals stayed out. The electric folks had rain puddles out their entry's. All us manual folks were dry. Just because electrics are handy doesn't make them any better. To each their own.

We had a similar experience at our park a week ago. The electrics came in and the manuals stayed out and the awning guy has been very busy here everyday installing new awnings on most of the manual awning rigs.

In all fairness it was a pretty good wind. Only real problem was it was at 2am. My DW got up and pushed a button and watched the action outside as the manual owners ran around in damage control.:B

We had our choice of awnings with an associated price for each. When NuWa's were being built, many were custom ordered and we chose what we wanted from a list of available options. I think there were 3 or 4 different awnings available and we chose the manual.

I suppose if I was a fulltimer, I would appreciate a manual awning, as I could put it out once, tie it down, and leave it there. But who wants to do that, if you have to put it up an hour later, because of rain or moving on to the next camp site.

I have always had manuals before, but now really appreciate my electric one. I have found we use the electric awing much more now, than the my past manuals. So much easier to just push a button and use the awning. Putting the manual out was rarely worth it, unless I knew the weather was guaranteed dry...plus, I would never leave it out at night, for fear of getting big winds or rain.

Plus, I would never leave my awing out in the rain, unless I knew was going to be able to leave it out for an extended time to dry (which is rare when traveling from one campsite to another). Otherwise, rolling it up with any wetness will guarantee mold.

Because of the above reasons, I have found the electric awning convenience allows me to use it much more.

We have an electric awning and I made PVC support poles for it. Have had this awning out in over 40 mph wind and have no problems. It has gotten windier than that and only takes about 30 seconds to disconnect the support poles and hit the switch and awning comes in.

jnharley wrote:
When we had ours built, we opted for a manual awning instead of the electric one. As fulltimers, we rarely put out the awning anyway. To us, electric awnings seem more trouble than they are worth and cost a ton of money.

So, was the manual awning "standard" and the electric an "option" or was the electric "standard" and the manual a "hidden option", not necessarily on the sheet?

Lyle

NC Hauler wrote:

laknox wrote:
Has anyone found a FW model they like, that comes standard with an electric awning, and asked the manufacturer if it can be deleted in favor of a manual awning?

Lyle

You have "rails" that have been attached to the side of your 5er in a different configuration than that of a manual awning with the arms/legs.....If it were done "after the fact", it might be hard to remove the electric awning gliding rails and install manual awning glide rails without leaving holes in places that will need to be repaired to where it doesn't affect the appearance of your new 5er....I've seen a 5er at a campground where we stayed once and they had replaced their electric awning with an manual and the job hadn't been done very well, you could see where holes had been filled in and even the owners regretted having had it done.

Don't know if I would want the dealer to do that job or not...

I'm talking about built from the get-go with manual; no electric installed at all.

Lyle

B.Sjulestad wrote:
Just curious, why would you want to delete it?

Mostly because we camp in sunny areas and I like the shade my awing provides when it's out. If the wind comes up, my manual awning is a lot more robust than virtually every electric I've read about. Also, when we're boondocking, running the awning in and out all the time would use a lot of electricity unnecessarily.

Lyle

They might be able to delete it, then add a manual at the dealer. If they manufacturer them with electrics they would probably have to order a manual and it would impact the production line.

jnharley wrote:
When we had ours built, we opted for a manual awning instead of the electric one. As fulltimers, we rarely put out the awning anyway. To us, electric awnings seem more trouble than they are worth and cost a ton of money.

Our sales person told us that if we did not get the wind sensor for $xxx.xx and the awning does not have a rain tip sensor that it would be a pain... So we opted for the manual also...

We had very good luck with our electric. Last year we camped at two very windy locations. One, in fact, is where many of the Washington wind farms are located. The electric did fine in the wind and we only had to pull it back a bit (not fully extended) when the winds were very strong. Winds there routinely blow 30 - 50mph.