Awning question what is too much wind

I think that winds can damage older awning fabric causing weakened sewed seams to come apart and hastening need for fabric replacement. Why risk it.

I've had my Class C for about two years now and just completely replaced the awning.
Here in Iowa the wind can come up FAST and hard. As others have said, I have mine ready to retract up in a moments notice and never leave it unattended.
(Side note: same goes with water, always shut it off when unattended!)
Carporting it would be nice at times, but I notice a slight sag in the awning and it collects the AC condensation. (I have a curved roof and it exits Party side.)
I never use those flappy things as if the awning is flappying that much it's time to retract.

When we are set up for the winter in Florida, I anchor our awing down.

I am hyper paranoid of my awning and wind. A couple of years ago, in Florida, a bad storm came up very quickly and I couldn't get it down fast enough. Broke one of the arms. The worse part was sitting in the RV listening to it flap and feeling the RV rock like it was going to be on it's side at any second. No collateral damage to the rig or the neighbors. We all were caught off guard. I bring it in anytime we leave for more than an hour or anytime it starts flapping and making a noise that sets off a flashback from Florida! Good luck!

I haven't bought an awning lock yet, but for now: I just take my awning rod (for unfurling the awning) and put the end in the hole in the end of the awning tube, then zip tie the rod to the awning support. Other people have pictures of this scattered in these forums. Probably not quite as secure as an official awning lock, but seems to work until I can get something better.

As soon as we can feel it moving in the wind we bring it in. Why leave it out and take a chance of breaking an arm or getting it torn?

When we leave the RV for more than a few hours, we run it in also. But not at night. When a wind comes up it wakes us and we can bring it in.

Sort of off topic, but driving in strong headwinds can cause your awning to inflate and unfurl,acting like a sail, shredding and tearing loose from your rig and even destroying the support arms, etc. It happened to us last summer. Luckily only the fabric needed replacement and cost us $730 installed. We had an awning lock device installed to prevent possiblity of unfurling in the future.

http://awninglock.com/index.shtml

Thanks for your input I typically am pretty cautious in leaving it out. It's always in when we go to bed and almost never left out when not there. The question came about from a&e not giving you any specs on putting it in and to use good judgement. I do know most power awnings are preset to come in at 18mph

FWIW.....there are a lot of differences between awnings....some have automatic closers, some like ours cannot be tied down because it is mounted along the top of the roof line 12' off the ground.

Mine has been up, only down once, and that was during the PDI. Central Texas winds are so unpredictable during the fall/winter/spring that it might be a dead calm one minute, 50-70 mph gusts the next... and I've seen entire pavilions thrown 20 feet in the air when ten minutes earlier, it was quiet.

Awnings are nice, but I like mine with my rig, and not firmly wrapped around a nearby tree.