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Got into a confused situation when buying a secondhand awning - to cut a long story short, how do you decide what size an awning is? Clearly you measure the length of the beading that goes into the rail, then add the distance to the mud flap/skirt at each end - but where do you measure it to on the flap? The top of the flap? The bottom? or most probably somewhere about the centre?

And is it my imagination, or do different manufacturers awning sizes (e.g. a size 10, 11, 12 etc) actually vary between manufacturers?

Sorry, I'm not being very clear, so I'll tell you the whole story.

I bought a Coachman caravan, and as a twenty-five year long caravanner, I correctly measured the ground-to-ground awning size, which was 900.

I bought secondhand a Dorema awning off e-bay from someone not far away, which was advertised as a size 900, code 11. Not realising at that time that the size code varied between manufacturers, I queried the size before bidding, but it was confirmed to be 900.

A few days later on a site, I threaded the awning onto the rail, but found that it was 40 to 50 cm too large, but in trying to determine the true size to the seller (who was very helpful because he was as confused as me) I laid the awning on the ground and did some measuring.

The piping was 840. Beyond the piping was (each side) a total 60cm of additional material, which appeared to me (being used for many years to a traditional Trio awning) to be 30cm to the top of what I call the mud flap, and 30cm of mud flap.

Now where I may be wrong is whether this mud flap is expected to be laid flat on the ground for its width of 30cm, either inside (under any groundsheet) or outside, sloping away from the walls at an angle. As it happens, I was not using a groundsheet, so assumed the mud flap was laid outside the awning, pushing the rain away, as I always did when using a groundsheet or not on my earlier Trio awnings.

For the seller's benefit I took a photo with a measuring tape in position, but can't see how to put this picture on this forum. Anyway, as I said, the seller was very amicable about this because he was no wiser than me, and gave me a full refund; I left him a copy of the photo for any resale he may make.

(Incidently, does anyone know when manufacturers decided to produce code sizes for their awnings, they couldn't have all used the same system? The chart kindly posted by Jeff is only three manufacturers out of goodness knows how many.)

Sorry if I have confused everyone, but no-one is more confused than me and the seller - it all comes down to where you measure to on the awning beyond the piping.

It may help if you state the model caravan and whether it's a 2 or 4 berth but a Dorema Code 11 means size 11 which is too big as this is a 900 - 925 cms. awning so that's why you have too much excess material. My caravan is a Coachman Amara 450 and the official awning rail size is 886 cms. so I bought a Dorema size 10 which is 875 - 900 cms. and fits perfectly. See the Dorema size chart below.

http://www.dorema.co.uk/dealerinformation.php