Responding to two responses to my post First, was I dealing directly with Fiamma USA in Florida? Yes. And if you look at their website now you will find no way to order from them, they refer you to RV dealers. I discussed this very issue with the parts manager at Leisure Time RV, another Florida business that has been doing business with Fiamma for several years. She said that Fiamma has recently, within the last few weeks, changed some of their policies and the way they do business with vendors, and this is part of the changes. Second, the center rafter for rain on the Fiamma awning. On the large awnings like I have, the center rafter, advised for use by Fiamma in the rain, actually can make the problem of water pooling in the awning worse. By putting the barrier in the middle, no matter how much you slope the awning, there will be a pool of water on the high side, created by the rafter. I my case this time, I just didn't have the awning sloped enough and water built up across the whole thing. The awning itself didn't fail but the rear mount did, pulled off of the rain gutter on the van. And the front was about to go also, the rain gutter on the van was bent almost flat. That tells me that the awning held a hell of a lot of water without breaking. I'm sure the part that broke went when the awning detached from the van and the back end dropped putting some weird loads on everything. |
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