It’s the middle of the night. You can hear the wind start whistling. You think “that’s a nice cool change for the evening…..” then the bloody awning starts flapping about, and your missus/hubby is pretending to be asleep. You have to get up and roll in the awning….. or do you?
There are two popular solutions to fix flappy awnings – deflappers and anti-flappers. They sound similar and many vanners use the terms interchangably, but they are so so so different.
Caravan De-flappers
De-flappers are a fantastic, DIY, cheap and easy way to reduce the flapping of your awning a bit. They are quick to fit and give you a bit more tension on the vinyl. They are a plastic clamp about 150mm / 6 inches long that clamp onto the vinyl of your awning, then you tighten the velcro straps up to the awning rafter. You normally position them in the centre of the vinyl. They come in pairs – one for each side of the awning. And they come in either caravan, or pop-type style. The pop-top style has a longer strap. The amount of tension you get on the awning depends on your physical strength to stretch everything while you tighten it up.
Caravan Anti-Flap Kits
A properly installed anti-flap kit is a different beast altogether. You’ll have such a rock solid roof over your head, you’ll think you deserve a job with the setup crew in the circus, and it doesn’t require any physical effort. (Although a bit of height helps).
An anti-flap kit consists (in its most basic form) of 2x aluminium bars that run the FULL depth of your awning when its rolled out (from the van to the roller). These bars have a really huge clamp on them, that grabs the entire awning – which prevents the awning vinyl from being able to flap about. On their own they are great. But….
For the ultimate setup, you’ll want 1 or 2 intermediate curved rafters. These are simple aluminium bars that fit under the awning vinyl roof and push the vinyl up, putting it under extra tension, while also giving it a curve for better water run off.
Installation requires affixing a few brackets on the wall of your van near the awning sail track, and putting a few holes in the roller of the awning tube. It’s pretty straightforward, but there’s a few pitfalls you need to be aware of:
- getting the awning setup correctly before putting the holes in – most people end up with the awning rolled too far out.
- avoiding drilling in to the internal mechanisms of the awning roller. There’s important bits in there, and we see many awning fail because people have unknowingly damaged them during DIY installs of anti flap kits.
- wrong sizing – there 3+ sizes of kits to suit different awnings. Ensure you get the right one.
Once you’ve got an anti-flap kit, you’ll use it everytime you setup your awning – it just improves your comfort level soooo much, and they are quick to setup.
All annex walls require an anti-flap kit, so if you’re thinking about a full size annex in the future, you’ll have the basics already done.
If you use caravan shade cloth type walls, you will find hanging the end walls from the anti flap kit a much neater solution than hanging them off the awning rafter.
Caravan Anti Flap Kit Installation Toowoomba
We offer professional fitting of anti flap kits with a full range of all sizes and various rafters in stock. Talk to us – give us a call 07 4633 0845 orcontact us online about getting the right Anti Flap Kit for your van.
