What Awning Fabric ?

[hoakken]

I have decided my awning fabric has made it’s last trip. What I am trying to find is opinions about what’s the best fabric. Every website says theirs is the best and somebody really is superior. I’m not so concerned about price if it’s reasonable. Any info is appreciated. My awning is a A&E 8500 pull down.

[jmck1737]

Last year we replaced one of our 2 awnings with fabric from Tough Top Awnings. There website helps you measure correctly and ensure you get the correct awning for your particular brand. These are well made and custom fit to your awning.

We did the install ourselves following a video from you tube. Wife and I did that 10 foot awning ourselves in about an hour taking our time and following all the directions.

With just over a year on this fabric it still looks great and we plan to replace the other, longer 15 foot awning, to match.

[stinger608]

I purchased one of these Sun Wave fabric for our trailer:

https://www.rvpartscountry.com/Unive...ngFabrics.html

Installed it earlier this spring. Ours is an 18' and the wife and I replaced it watching this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LzmqPcpIPk

Took us about 2 hours from start to finish. Wasn't too bad to do at all.

Don't get me wrong, it will be a pain but not as bad and completely disassembling the awning roller and frame.

RV Parts Country also has the genuine A & E awning fabric as well:

https://www.rvpartscountry.com/AEAwn...entFabric.html

When measuring for a new fabric you measure from the center of the brace to center of brace.
An example is; ours was right at 18' from leg to leg. The fabric of course comes in shorter than that but the awning is considered an 18'.

Hope this helps.

[Triangle Drifter]

12 year old awning here. The workings are Dometic but the material appears to be a marine grade canvas type.

The big savior is the cover that comes over the awning in the stowed position.

Can't go wrong spending the extra & getting a marine grade material that has double or more user life.

[Gary RVRoamer]

The base choices are vinyl or woven acrylic. It is highly doubtful if any brand is still using actual canvas, but I never say "never" for RV stuff.

Vinyl is a solid sheet product, impervious to water and resistant to tears but rather heavy. It can be a solid color or modestly patterned. Vinyl sheet material does NOT ever require waterproofing.

Woven acrylic fabrics are light and offered in an amazing array of colors and patterns, but the material is porous. It is made waterproof with the addition of a fabric coating and sooner or later that coating will have to be renewed. How often? At a guess, 5-10 years, depending in the usage and exposure.


These days most new awnings and replacement fabrics are woven but vinyl is still a great choice for a rugged, low-maintenance awning material. I think you will find that most brands of replacement fabric are commodities, produced in major fabric mills but sold under a variety of brand names. There may be differences in the grade of the fabric, e.g. weight, tightness of weave, etc. Try to find the fabric specs when comparing brands.

[98FPA]

hoakken, I too need new awning so I had been reading up on this as well. Pretty much what I came up with is that there are two types of awning fabrics. One is acrylic and the other is vinyl. I have an A&E 9000 20-ft. awning with the metal weathershield. My awning is an acrylic and is over 20 years old. It was in very good shape until mother nature and a gust of wind decided I needed a new one. Too me, many of the vendors appear to sell only the vinyl fabric. My son had a 2008 5th. wheel that had a vinyl awning and it was in terrible shape after 10 years (and he never used it). It was cracked and weathered, perhaps it was an exception. I'll be following this to see what you come up with, I always look for good advice and help.

[hoakken]

I have decided to go with the tough tops fabric. I have found no negative reviews on the web with the only 4 star of five was about limited colors. I’ll be a few weeks away on install but I will make a new post when I get it installed.