Two Tips To Follow If You’ve Bought Your First Caravan Awning

Here are some tips to follow if you've bought your first caravan awning.

Practise putting up the caravan awning before your first trip with it

Before taking the awning with you on your next trip in your caravan, you should first spend time practising setting up the awning next to your caravan in your driveway (or wherever you keep your caravan on your property). The reason for this is that whilst caravan awnings are quick and easy to put in place once you get the hang of setting them up, it can take a few rounds of doing this before you work out the fastest method (particularly if the awning is not just a simple overhead piece of fabric secured in place with ropes and pegs but is one that features 'walls' as well that make it resemble a full-sized tent). Determining, for example, how far to stretch the awning's ropes before securing the pegs into the soil to create enough tension to stop the awning from sagging can take practice, as can working out how to efficiently slide the poles of the awning's walls into place.

Rehearsing this process a few times before you go on your next adventure in a caravan is important, as it will mean that your first couple of hours at the campsite will not be spent in a state of frustration due to you not being able to work out how to set up the caravan's awning. Instead, you'll be able to fly through this process and begin enjoying your holiday much sooner after your arrival.

Form the habit of airing out and drying the caravan awning after returning home from a trip

After getting home from a trip in your caravan, it's important to immediately pull out the awning and set it up (or alternatively, if the awning is one you can easily detach from the caravan, you can lay its panels of fabric over a clothes-drying line in your garden). It is particularly important to do this if it rained heavily on your awning during your trip. The reason for this is that if the caravan's awning isn't aired out and completely dry before you put it away, the fabric could get mouldy, and a musty odour could form on it that might be very hard to remove.

If you only discover this after setting up the awning during the next caravan trip, you might not be able to use it as an extra space during the holiday and might end up stuck in the caravan without being able to get fresh air when it rains. You might also end up having to cram all of the extra items that you had planned to keep under the awning into the caravan. However, by airing out and fully drying it before you tuck it away until you go away again, you can avoid inadvertently spoiling your next trip.

Contact a supplier for more information about caravan awnings.