RV Awning Operation and Maintenance: Carefree of Colorado

Manual awnings are not that difficult to operate. In fact, they're really easy when they're brand new, but over time they start to get a little bit sticky and there are a few tips and some tricks that you can do to make it run just a little more smooth. So we've got a Carefree of Colorado manual awning here on this 23-foot Jayco and we're just going to show the operation of it. And this one hasn't been used very much so there are a few little issues. The first thing we're going to do is we've got these latches actually hold the arm in. So this one pushes up and that latch pulls out. So this piece right here so it keeps that arm and this from bellowing out when it's going down the road, we've got a latch up there. So we have the same thing over here. I'm gonna push that up at that, like that, so. So our next step is to take our awning rod here and we have a latch up here that is an open and a closed position Right now it's in the closed so we push it back up to the open. That means we're going to bring it out and that should allow this to come out. Now, the next thing we're going to hook into our strap or pull strap. Now this is located on the far side here. I would like to see it here. That's where you typically want it in the operation because if I have it clear back over here and I'm going to have too much force being pulled on this this is going to come up faster than that side. I can start to get some misalignment. The other thing I get then is the stair-stepping on our fabric here or telescoping. And once we start to see it not roll up completely straight like this, then we're going to start to have some issues with it coming in and out. So one other thing we did see with this one here is we have a little bit of an alignment issue up here. It's got a little bit of a catch. And so I want to put this back up and we'll notice that when we bring this out, you hear it starting to squeak. So rather than pull that strap really hard and may possibly break it, I just want to get it started so that I don't have that issue. So now when we pull it out, when you see this awning is really wet and that's, that's typical for awnings that sit out for a long period of time, you get a lot of moisture, you get a lot of condensation of snow and that type of stuff. So it's good idea to periodically pull these out and dry them off. We see here, we already got a lot of mold and mildew that started and the other thing with these is mold and mildew is not actually attaching to the vinyl. It's attaching to any dust and dirt that's part, that is in this awning. So we should be able to clean this off pretty well. Just gonna bring this all the way down to the bottom. There. And then I'm going to go in underneath here and we're going to grab the bar in the side, and this is going to be a little difficult to see, to start with, but we're gonna There we go, we got it. So now I'm coming over here. Now we can see. So what I did is I pulled this up. This gives us a little bit of a, there's a small little latch in here that's going to go into these holes. So when I bring this down, you're just going to there, find the hole it fits and it looks like we're pretty close to there. So one of the couple of things that I would do before I bring this out any further is we have a lot of friction in this. So I like to spray a little silicone, a quick drying silicone in these channels, make sure they're good and cleaned out. Same thing with that top clip that we had over here. So next we're going to bring these out, click them up to the top, tighten these up. This is going to give us some stability. Now, if I wanted to, I could take and remove this down at the bottom here, we just have a little clip and I could literally take this out and create a post. And we see that we have these little round outlets here. I can put stakes in those, stake it to the ground. And I can also do a patio, a screened in patio in this. So I'm just going to go to the other side, run that back up. And see where we're really catching in this. So there's just a, you know, you've got, you've got a powder coated aluminum on these and they have a tendency to kind of grab a little bit. So that's why it's a good idea to put a little bit of silicone or graph graphite or something. Just allow that to slide a little better and not fight me. Same thing with up there. We see a lot of rubbing in that. So I would adjust this up just a little bit and and get that so it just slides off a lot easier. Now, part of the reason that this was over to this end is that normally, like I said, we're going to be out here. We do have some straps in here, but we would be in the middle, but when I'm using it at the campground I bring it over to the end like that because I don't want it hanging down in the middle of my awning. So we see we've got this kind of angled down here. This would be, if we were out sight seeing and it was raining or inside, and we wanted the water to pool or drain down away from the door and not to pool up in here cause that eventually will start stretching the fabric and having it dip. So now to bring it back up we're just gonna do the opposite. So we'll take these. And again, we just need a little bit of silicone in those, just to kind of help loosen them up. Now, the difference is we're going to put this in the center this time, We're gonna bring this down. Hold our strap until we get back to the roll up position. We're going to bring it into the center. And one of the things you don't want to do is you don't want to let it go smacking up to the end there. You could bend some of this stuff. And a lot of times you'll lose your strap in here. So we want to make sure that strap stays in. So I'll just, nice and tight, handle in, handle down. That's the one we're having a little bit of an issue with up there, locked in, handle down and secured. So again, just a little bit of TLC, a little bit of lubrication on some of those make it run a lot smoother, especially the older it gets and clean that awning fabric off. Once a year, you should clean it and treat it depending on the awning company. Now, Carefree is simply a Dawn dish soap, the blue style. If you have other brands there, some of them have a acrylic and others will have a vinyl fabric. You just need to know what to clean and condition those. But definitely get that mold off there cause that's going to start to deteriorate this and we're going to start getting cuts and basically we're going to need a new awning.