Loving this Pup
Been working hard to get our new to us PUP ready for camping. I had new tires installed on it yesterday, I've gone through all the appliances and made sure they are in good order. I Plan on purifyin...
Forum Discussion
Sounds like you're getting the kinks all worked out. It's going to be a refining process for a while.
As I was reading about the awning, I'm thinking to myself that you don't need to stow the awning while the PUP is deployed. Just put it away after you lower the PUP when taking it all down. Then I realized you mean while you're still camping.
This has been a problem for me as well. We were camping in RMNP a couple of years ago and came back one afternoon to find the awning up on top of the PUP. Two legs were bent but I was able to get them back to usable condition. Since then, I have made straps that tie into stakes that I drive into the ground. I decided to have the straps and stakes come right down next to the legs instead of out at an angle like you see the guy wires on tents. That way, no one is tripping over them. It is not optimal for stability but I haven't encountered a situation that it hasn't worked for yet.
I will say that I would not leave the awning up in a severe wind storm. So now we're still back to the problem of how to put the awning away when the weather is too bad to keep it deployed.
Mine is particularly a pain as it is a highwall model that has a taller roof height than standard PUPs plus I did an over/under axle modification that added 5.5 additional inches of height overall.
I have to stand on a few points of the PUP and hang onto other parts to try to reach the top. I even have a step stool that I bring along because the retractable door step is too high off of the ground. None of that really helps.
What I've ended up doing is rolling the horizontal support bars that have the rubber cane tips on them that are against the roof side wall. This produces the action of rolling it forward until enough tension has been released and I can pull the pole down. Repeat for the other three tension poles until the awning can drop to the ground.
Well great but I still have to get in and out of the door that's now covered up.
A while back, I added velcro strips inside the bag as this one did not come with any. I can roll the awning up, stand on the door threshold and just reach up enough to secure the middle velcro straps around the rolled up awning. I can then get one or two more straps secured. Thus far, that has been enough to get the job done until the weather passes. Since the awning is rolled up into a heavy dense roll, it hasn't flapped around.
Everyone's situation is different but there just isn't a perfect solution as currently designed. I've toyed around with the idea of using ropes looped around the awning to roll it up sort of like pulleys but haven't done anything with it as it is so infrequently a problem.
Definitely get the Popup Gizmos and look at adding Reflectix in the windows that face the afternoon sun. I ended up with a less than perfect but very cheap solution of using the shiny aluminum car windshield shades stuffed between the clear vinyl windows and the outside mesh.
I'm glad you're enjoying it and keep sharing the discoveries.
As I was reading about the awning, I'm thinking to myself that you don't need to stow the awning while the PUP is deployed. Just put it away after you lower the PUP when taking it all down. Then I realized you mean while you're still camping.
This has been a problem for me as well. We were camping in RMNP a couple of years ago and came back one afternoon to find the awning up on top of the PUP. Two legs were bent but I was able to get them back to usable condition. Since then, I have made straps that tie into stakes that I drive into the ground. I decided to have the straps and stakes come right down next to the legs instead of out at an angle like you see the guy wires on tents. That way, no one is tripping over them. It is not optimal for stability but I haven't encountered a situation that it hasn't worked for yet.
I will say that I would not leave the awning up in a severe wind storm. So now we're still back to the problem of how to put the awning away when the weather is too bad to keep it deployed.
Mine is particularly a pain as it is a highwall model that has a taller roof height than standard PUPs plus I did an over/under axle modification that added 5.5 additional inches of height overall.
I have to stand on a few points of the PUP and hang onto other parts to try to reach the top. I even have a step stool that I bring along because the retractable door step is too high off of the ground. None of that really helps.
What I've ended up doing is rolling the horizontal support bars that have the rubber cane tips on them that are against the roof side wall. This produces the action of rolling it forward until enough tension has been released and I can pull the pole down. Repeat for the other three tension poles until the awning can drop to the ground.
Well great but I still have to get in and out of the door that's now covered up.
A while back, I added velcro strips inside the bag as this one did not come with any. I can roll the awning up, stand on the door threshold and just reach up enough to secure the middle velcro straps around the rolled up awning. I can then get one or two more straps secured. Thus far, that has been enough to get the job done until the weather passes. Since the awning is rolled up into a heavy dense roll, it hasn't flapped around.
Everyone's situation is different but there just isn't a perfect solution as currently designed. I've toyed around with the idea of using ropes looped around the awning to roll it up sort of like pulleys but haven't done anything with it as it is so infrequently a problem.
Definitely get the Popup Gizmos and look at adding Reflectix in the windows that face the afternoon sun. I ended up with a less than perfect but very cheap solution of using the shiny aluminum car windshield shades stuffed between the clear vinyl windows and the outside mesh.
I'm glad you're enjoying it and keep sharing the discoveries.
