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Tired of rain filling up the slide topper

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Edward Buker:
Seems like a lot of interest in this subject...... The pooling of large amounts of water on the fabric streches it further and worsens the problem over time. This also puts a huge amount of weight on the fabric and stresses all the components and attachment points. Just carry one bucket of water and consider a substantial pool in a large awning. (Be O.K. if trout were involved) It could concievably pull the roof moulding that acts as the track for the fabric attachment. Some have speculated that the awning tension has caused this type of failure but my guess is the real stress is a repeated pool of water.

Add to that the deluge affect, at some point during the slide closing cycle as a hazard. The slide seals on the top are very ineffective on the sloped top slides, on my 2002 Marquis, while in transition.

What I would envision is the 1 inch of mesh would be sewn in at an optimum point over the slide. Probably put it in as a "window" with the outer 3 to 4 inches of the acrylic fabric hemmed and left in tact for strength. Where the fabric drain area is you could glue down a length of plastic home type flat bottom gutter on the top of the slide. You would rip the sides of the gutter down to be just an inch or two high or so. The height of the gutter would be set by the slide design and clearences. The ends would be just beyond flush with a bead of silicone under them. That sounds like a good system to me. We should be looking for a volunteer with a torn slide cover to try this out and send some photos......

Tim Bentley:
Don’t know about your gutter idea; remember that it needs to go into the coach under the gasket when the slide is retracted.  How about a canvas gutter that is sewed under the awning to catch the water that comes through the mesh section above. It could be slightly tapered to the outside to make it a downhill run and made of a lighter material so it would roll up with the awning when it is retracted

As for allowing the water to come through to the top of the slide, my concern is not with the metal top of the slide, but with water standing along the rubber seal at the inside edge.  On my 03 Marquis, if the water gets to this rubber gasket it than can work it way under the top or down the sides into the coach.  This can happen easily if the coach is not level.  In the 03 Marquis the seam at the top inside of the slide under the gasket was not done well and I know of more than one coach where water leaked into the inside cabinets,  

There is a fix to keep the water from getting to this area using a strip of synthetic baseboard.  The baseboard is placed along the inside top of the slide under the rubber seal and sticks out about 1 inch.  This allows the water to travel to the edge and down with out getting near the gaskets.

Edward Buker:
Tim,

I do have a lot of taper on the top of my big slide that many do not. There would be room for a short height gutter but I like your idea better. It is all self contained and would roll up. It would add some lumps and maybe some wrinkles to the rolled up awning but that is all under the cover. The only downside I can think of is it may flap in the wind and create some noise when dry. That is a somewhat protected area but it does get windy out there and loose cloth will flap. Maybe if you start fairly tight to the mesh in the center of the awning window and then had a decent taper to each edge in both directions of the awning, that would minimize the loose cloth. It would have to hang down enough though to overcome the fact that the awning edges are tighter and higher than the awning centers by probably several inches due to the edge seam area having less stretch. (hem and stiching). Probably would need 3 to 4 inches of fabric depth at the edge on a big slide to provide a workable taper. If needed one could also sew in a 3/4 inch wide flat plastic batton into a pocket in the bottom of the gutter that would stiffen and weight this all enough so it would remain silent in the wind. I think this would all work quite nicely to form the gutter. These awnings are definitely too flat with many of our current coach designs so something like this is needed.....

Tim Bentley Co-Admin:
Edward

I like your idea of a batton along the bottom.  Did not think about the wind noise.  I have talked this over with Diana and we are thinking of using Bill’s idea of the holes in the awning with the cloth drain below. You are right that we also need a taper to the outside end so the water can find its way out.  We are looking for a lightweight waterproof material; maybe a rubber coated nylon, to use for the drain.  We have already had our awnings off to re sew the seams so sewing the drain would not be much of a problem.  If we use a lightweight material there may not be much of a wrinkle when rolled.  

If we can find the drain material we will give this a try and let you know what happens.

Edward Buker:
Looking forward to a photo and how it all worked out. I live near Pensacola FL and I just had my main slide topper repaired and resewn by a local marine canvas shop. They used Gortex tread which is the only material that seems to really hold up here in the sun and wind. They are very good and have a lot of experience with various cloths for the local boating crowd including sail repair. If you do not find something you like I could ask them what they recommend for the gutter cloth and relay it back to you.

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