Awning unrolled and slammed on roof while driving

[Doris.h]

I was driving home this morning in windy rainy conditions. Heard something loud and thought I had an accident. Apparently my Dometic awning unrolled and slammed on the roof. Knocked down every light cover, screens from vents, and broke the bathroom fan cover. Even the refrigerator baking soda powdered out of the material. Very scary stuff. Wish I would have known of this problem so I could have taken steps to have prevented it. Getting someone out through the Good Sam's Roadside assistance was a joke. I would still be sitting there. Used my Garmin RV and started calling service centers. We cut it off, unscrewed the brackets, slid it off. He had to cut it in half to get into his service truck. I'll be looking for a new awning and hopefully my insurance will help. Grateful nobody got hurt and the parts that flew off didn't fly into someones windshield.

[Skip426]

Welcome to iRV2.

Sorry your first post is about an unfortunate incident .

My manual awning unraveled in a similar fashion , when the coach was blasted with a ( best guess ) 40 mph gust from the side ; bent the locking tabs on the arms . DW and I , standing in a three foot deep ditch on a two lane road trying to get it retracted , had to stop in place because the next power pole would have pushed the awning tube through the toad windshield.
Fortunately , nothing was badly bent , and we were able to retract partially and get to the shelter of an abandoned building 6 miles down the road and fully retract the awning , zip tied the arms over the bent lock taps and continued our travels.
Hope your insurance come through.

[marjoa]

[Moderator edit]

Zip tying the awning arms, bungie cording the arms and all the many other self engineered ways to tie down the extension arms will NOT prevent this from happening again.

You have to prevent the actual awning ROLLER from unfurling.

Go the to green box up top and search out for solutions to do this.

[USMCRET]

Doris, was it a manual or automatic awning?

[bruce91]

I put this on mine after reading several posts here on irv2. Easy install

https://www.awninglock.com

[Spk64]

^^^^^
I did the same.

[travelorer99]

I have electric, but velcrow it closed on both arms, just incase and to help ease the thing from being needed to be rolled up to the max.

[grindstone01]

Get some awning travel locks or wrap some velcro straps around the arms.

[johnhicks]

I made a lock with a long stainless steel rod that fits into the awning tube track. I bent one end of the rod 90 degrees, with about six inches sticking out.

When I roll up the awning, I stick the bent end of the rod in the unused track of the awning tube, then pull the long side down alongside the awning rail, where I ziptie it in two places.

If the awning tube were to rotate it would jam the rotation with the rod, and the zipties prevent it from coming loose and flailing around. So far so good.

Simply securing the rails may keep the awning from opening up but do nothing to keep it from unrolling and ballooning.

[Ray,IN]

For a manual awning, the only way for it to unfurl is for the ratchet lever to be incorrectly moved to the open position while stored, or for the ratchet pawl to break
I've never had that happen_yet.

[mbutts]

Here's an off-the-shelf solution that is going on my shopping list: https://www.awninglock.com/greatestmyth.html

[johnhicks]

I had an Awninglock on another MH and while it worked, the awning rarely rolled up so the hole in the tube was in the same place rotation-wise.

[PABO05]

Can this happens with manual or power awnings?

[Griswald One]

[Moderator edit}

I know I have certainly never searched it out and in 12 years of RVing and 6 years on the Jayco / IRV forum this is the first I have ever heard of this issue.