Tips on Awning Installation and Precautions For Use

Doing it yourself has its own benefits. You could save a lot of money with the practice and apart from that you get to learn a lot about the stuff you are installing and a great general insight on installing things. Awning could be one of those things that you want to learn to install. You could attach an awning to your caravan or simply want to mount it on a wall at your home. With that comes the issues that you may face installing an awning.

Well, whatever the case may be, you should be well acquainted with the common issues of awning installation and that could be done by following a few steps:

Cracking Noise

You may hear cracking noise when you retract an awning. There can be several reasons to that noise:

Make sure that the awning brackets are completely tightened on the wall. While mounting them on the wall you might have missed screwing the bolts well.

Another reason that makes the squealing sound could be- the square torsion bar is not well seated on the mounting brackets. The misaligned seating creates a gap resulting into colliding of the torsion bar and the mounting brackets when you open or retract the awning.

Make sure the arms of the awning are tightly bolted to the roller tube. The loose bolts could be another reason of the cracking noise.

Winds

Strong winds could beat up the awning. If the winds turn turbulent, they might uproot the fiber of the awning. Avoid parking your caravan or camper in a windy area or if at home, retract the awning before the winds turn strong.

Motor

Motorized awnings are a great option and save a lot of energy but an electric motor has more chances to malfunction if not operated carefully. Very frequent retractions on a single use could temporarily shut down the motor. Let the motor cool down for some time. Also if you use cheap motors to save money, you might have to shell out money more frequently as cheap motors tend to go bad every now and then.

Apart from these, there are things to be taken care of while using an awning-

The fabric of an awning is made of canvas generally. Clean the fiber intermittently, it could save it from mildew deposit and subsequent issues.

Do not overextend the shoulders of the awning, it will sag the canvas and you would need to replace it. Generally, the fiber is not covered under warranty.

Hanging plants or other items on the front bar could collapse the awning. Avoid doing any of that.

Considering all the above points you could install an awning in a hassle-free way and save on caravan awning repairs.