Awnings and high winds?

[mezmochill]

It seems that factory awnings achilles heel is the wind.

At what point do say its too windy and it's time to take the awning down? And do you leave it up overnight?

 

[rayra]

it's an issue for any awning, 'factory' or homebrew. How strong is the fabric? How strong are your anchor points? what's the angle of incidence of the winds? gusting or sustained? Is the awning in the lee of the vehicle, or acting as a parachute on the wind-facing side? If it keeps wracking back and forth it will tear up something. What's the forecast? Are you in a place that has chronic winds in the afternoon? Onshore breezes? In a canyon that funnels the weather right to your setup location? Storm on the horizon?
Way too many variables for the answer you seem to be seeking. It's a judgement call, in the place at that moment.

 

[r_vdb]

In high wind I have never left an awning unattended on a travel trailer or the land Cruiser, The possibility of breaking things and or hurting somebody are too high. My 2 cents...

 

[mezmochill]

.......

 

[mezmochill]

it's an issue for any awning, 'factory' or homebrew. How strong is the fabric? How strong are your anchor points? what's the angle of incidence of the winds? gusting or sustained? Is the awning in the lee of the vehicle, or acting as a parachute on the wind-facing side? If it keeps wracking back and forth it will tear up something. What's the forecast? Are you in a place that has chronic winds in the afternoon? Onshore breezes? In a canyon that funnels the weather right to your setup location? Storm on the horizon?
Way too many variables for the answer you seem to be seeking. It's a judgement call, in the place at that moment.

I will say as fact that a commercial awning will fail under high wind conditions far earlier than a simple home built system built of light ripstop nylon and strong anchors/rope/bungee.

MUCH cheaper, faster setup, MUCH more durable, easily available parts, can withstand 25-30 knots sustained gusting to 50. if it implodes overnight easy field fix.


Peace of mind, just doesn't look cool. You are being sold a inherently weak concept.


How many have had their commercial awning jacked up by the wind? How often is it deployed. For shade or rain?

 

[mezmochill]

In high wind I have never left an awning unattended on a travel trailer or the land Cruiser, The possibility of breaking things and or hurting somebody are too high. My 2 cents...

Thanks for the reply. At what point is the wind too high? By unattended do you also mean overnight while sleeping.

 

[rayra]

Unattended generally means you not in the area to react to a developing problem, not asleep a few feet from it.

And I'll ask you to clarify / expand your earlier reply to me, it seems like it's missing the word 'not' in there. I'm not making any argument for or against a commercial or homebrew product, I'm saying both are susceptible to high winds, depending on conditions.

sustained high winds, I'm taking it down. Stormfront blowing in, I'm taking it down. Either expected with the coming day, during my planned sleep, it's coming down before I go to sleep. There is no single wind speed number. It depends on a lot of variables.

 

[r_vdb]

I will roll it up if I'm wrapping it up for the night or I am going riding during the day. If we are hanging around camp then it's not an issue I would pin it down properly & keep an eye out, however we go riding in the desert & the gusts of wind come out of nowhere and we have seen some pretty good damage by awnings that were left out & unattended.

 

[Kiomon]

We have a fiamma F45s and it does great in the wind. We have been through some crazy winds here in Baja and has held up great. It has a suspension in the support arms, so it flexes and pivots to shed the wind. It's still loud and scary to look at when it's windy, but we left it up in gusting 25+ mph wind by accident and it was fine. But unless I needed it up, I would take it in if it got above 15 mph or so.

 

[concretejungle]

I thought i would post a reply in this thread. I just got back from a beach trip (NC OBX) where i camped on the beach for three days. It was very windy, one day it was sustained winds of 20-30 MPH. It was so windy, that my ezi-up blew away!! It was completely staked out, all the walls were staked out and each corner was staked and it still is gone.

My ARB awning was in the same conditions and it was staked out at each corner. It did great and i never once thought it was going bye-bye. Pretty good test i think.

 

[Streaky]

The Hannibal design of awning doesn't need ropes or poles to keep it upright and as such it's super fast to take down in the evening....there's no need to roll it up either. Just fold-in the two swing-out arms and let the canvas and cross bar hang down freely....it takes less than fifteen seconds to put back up the next day!

 

[Sr5trd99]

I've got a Hannibal like designed awning and the mounts are pretty strong but with high winds and all that leverage I can image it acting like a sail and ripping right off. Because of that I built some triangulated supports that mounts off the trucks slider and bumper. Now the awning is rock solid. I just took it to Pismo and it held up to the winds with out even a hint of movement.

 

[pcut]

Who made yours and where did you get it? I sold my Eezi awning and am looking for a non pole/rigging awning- Hannibal, Bundutec, possibly one from OK4wd or perhaps Paul at Equipt or yours?
Thanks

 

[Sr5trd99]

The awning is a African Outback Awning. I bought it off this forum a few years ago but not sure if you can get them in the states anymore.

 

[ventura911]

So Cal Teardrops has the "Scipio" Hannibal-type awning. I've ordered one for my J30.:sombrero:

http://www.socalteardrops.com/options.php?cid=8&oid=71