Can we switch to an electric Awning

Canadian Rainbirds wrote:

West Beachhouse wrote:
Nothing is perfect. I have an electric awning and wish it was a manual. Two reasons, one if the motor ceases working it will not be easy to retract the awning if out. Secondly, at this time I know of no operation to lower one side of the awning to reduce water accumulation on the awning when extended during a rain.
West Beachhouse

Have to agree. Though it's nice to have, no posts or support arms at head height and easy to deploy and store it has two drawbacks; You can't drop one side, and you can't drop it way down to wash the top. If/when our electric awning dies we will give serious thought to installing a manual one.

First, as stated above, you only use it for sunshine. You can tilt the newer electric awnings if you want, but then the stupid dump feature will fail to soak everything. You can drop it down quite a bit for cleaning with a very long handled brush. As far as support arms at head height, the electric awnings should come with hardhats because they indeed are awful in that regard. If it weren't for the ugly holes and lack of framing I would swap mine for a manual.

West Beachhouse wrote:
Nothing is perfect. I have an electric awning and wish it was a manual. Two reasons, one if the motor ceases working it will not be easy to retract the awning if out. Secondly, at this time I know of no operation to lower one side of the awning to reduce water accumulation on the awning when extended during a rain.
West Beachhouse

Have to agree. Though it's nice to have, no posts or support arms at head height and easy to deploy and store it has two drawbacks; You can't drop one side, and you can't drop it way down to wash the top. If/when our electric awning dies we will give serious thought to installing a manual one.

I have an electric Carefree awning and I hate it. I will never buy an electric awning again. No flexablity

Carefree makes this conversion kit to convert a manual Carefree or A & E (Dometic) awning to electric.

http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/item/carefree-travel-r-12-volt-patio-awning-conversion-adjustable-pitch-white/54501

Jack_Diane_Freedom wrote:
We have an electric awning and it works equally as well in the rain or the sun and it dumps the water off. Would never go back to a manual. If the weather gets really unpredictable or a big blow coming just press the button and it retracts in about 30 second. Love it.

X2...

We have an electric awning and it works equally as well in the rain or the sun and it dumps the water off. Would never go back to a manual. If the weather gets really unpredictable or a big blow coming just press the button and it retracts in about 30 second. Love it.

ScottG wrote:
My awning material is damaged by the sun so I looked into installing a whole new electric awning. I ran into a problem though...
Electric awnings require (per directions) some solid wood at the very top of the brackets so you can install two large lag-bolts. My TT has an aluminum channel, luan and styrofoam insulation up there so there's just nothing substantial to attach it to.
So if you have some 2X material at the top of your walls then you can probably install one but otherwise it may not stay put.

Upper mounts on electric and manual need the SAME structural wood or metal. A electric will work just fine where a manual was mounted. Doug

Lynnmor wrote:

kmbelt wrote:
I have an electric Dometic 9100 and it SUCKs. I'd rather have a manual any day. Any slight breeze and i need to roll it in to keep it from damaging. It is just held out by hydraulic tensioners. Cannot use de-flappers and i'm afraid to tie it down since it has no metal side supports, just the fabric.

I have a Carefree and it is the same deal. What is the purpose of a fair weather awning?

To give SHADE. That is the purpose of awnings. They are NOT rain shields. Doug

Lynnmor wrote:

kmbelt wrote:
I have an electric Dometic 9100 and it SUCKs. I'd rather have a manual any day. Any slight breeze and i need to roll it in to keep it from damaging. It is just held out by hydraulic tensioners. Cannot use de-flappers and i'm afraid to tie it down since it has no metal side supports, just the fabric.

I have a Carefree and it is the same deal. What is the purpose of a fair weather awning?

According to Girard, who makes mine, they are sunshields---very expensive sunshields!

kmbelt wrote:
I have an electric Dometic 9100 and it SUCKs. I'd rather have a manual any day. Any slight breeze and i need to roll it in to keep it from damaging. It is just held out by hydraulic tensioners. Cannot use de-flappers and i'm afraid to tie it down since it has no metal side supports, just the fabric.

I have a Carefree and it is the same deal. What is the purpose of a fair weather awning?