Girard Awning

[Gary Wolfer]

I made a temporary cover for the awning yesterday out of a 20' piece of 18 oz coated truck tarp vinyl 12" wide and secured it to the wall just above the awning with a strip of gorilla tape. I noticed the box on my coach was riveted to the side of the coach and I put the gorilla tape over the rivets just in case and sure enough the basement and inside wall was dry this morning after a very hard rain all night, however the wind was blowing and the vinyl cover blew off and was no longer connected to the gorilla tape. I used to own a truck tarp shop and forgot pvc coated vinyl has plasticizer in it which is a gas and kept the tape from sticking to it. so It would not hold but the rivets being covered did stop the leak inside the wall completely so when it drys out I will reseal the rivets all the way around the box. The awning not meeting the wall and having a gap just came out the holes in the bottom of the box and ran down the outside wall of the coach. Bottom line the rivets were causing the leak.

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

Gary,
Leaks at the rivets is a common problem on the awnings. I used Lexel to seal the rivets on my last coach. Also ran a bead along the top awning to coach joint. Ed Buker's solution is probably better but the Lexel worked for me (at least for 3+ years until I sold the coach).
Steve

[Grant Ralston]

Gary,

The water inside the wall may not all be coming from the awning connection point.  A few months ago I removed the aluminum strip covering the connection between the roof and walls on our 1998 Contessa.  I found several areas, the worse at the front cap over the driver side window where the cap & roof & sidewall joined.  The fiberglass cap had been poorly trimmed during assembly resulting in a large gap that depended entirely on the caulk under the trim to keep the water out - see photo.
Over the awning I found the fiberglass trimmed well and lapped over the sidewall, but many of the screws had rusted heads, or stripped threads, and were not holding the roof panel tight against the side wall to keep water in the gutter from entering the splice area.  As others have done I removed the gutter and all the screws, applied a heavy bead of roof caulk, than reinstalled the gutter with stainless screws.  Many places I had to drill new holes where the original screws where either broken or the holes in the frame were stripped.  The result was a tight seal of the roof to wall above the awning box (although not as straight or attractive as it was in 1998!).  I plan to add Ed Buker's repair to the top of the awning box when I can, but for now I have stopped those wall leaks.

Grant

(Pictures are in next post).

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

Resized Grant's pictures;

[Gary Wolfer]

Fortunately I have stopped the wall leak till winter is over hopefully I attached gorilla tape over the rivets and so far no leaks in the inside wall nor the middle basement compartment under the awning. I will try to do the seal right when weather improves. I have had one back basement compartment that still leaks on the other side under the super slide and I did a bottom slide seal last summer and resealed the basement compartments but the one still leaks Now I know it can come down inside the wall fortunately I have not seen any leaks in the inside near the slide. Compartment still getting wet.