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I was quite excited about our purchase of a bradcot classic awning and got it for a great price brand new on e bay. We are new caravanners so no experience of full size awnings. Anyway after a couple of practice sessionns we arrived on site and encountered 2 problems.

1. The easy poles bent when trying to tension them, we put it up in windy conditions but we are gutted as we cant dismantle them. Can you replace the individual bent poles.anyone else had this problem?

2. After a heavy downpour of rain we awoke to find the awning flooded with all our things. How do people prevent this as no one elses seemed to be flooded. The pitch was hardstanding.  Thanks for listening !!!!  

Hi Tuts

if the awning is made of canvas it may need a good waterproofing to stop the rain getting in.

as for the poles , I am quite sure you can get replacments from bradcot either direct or via your local caravan dealers that stock bradcot awnings.

Some awnings need to get wet before they are fully waterproof. The water soaks in causing the fibers to swell and become weather-proof...apparently.

The awning poles, if you extend them to far they are really hard to retract.  We were told not to extend them fully and have never had to. some are three pieces so extend both bits equally.  You have pushed grey bit marked with arrow to try to tetract them.

Ours dont bend when up have had to be careful when windy though.

  HI .

  We had this flooding problem last year. My solution was to send the wife outside

 with a small hand trowel and dig a small trench round the awning. Worked a treat.

 Only drawback is wife moaned for days afterwards about getting soaked...hehehe

mrmerc.

We opted for a Dorema full awning and an Inaca porch - not much difference in the prices - Inaca are NOT cheap.  We went for the alloy poles for the fullawning - with our fingers crossed and invested in the storm straps which clip in at the sides ( they fit both the awning and the porch, you could have knocked me down with a feather!).  We had a couple of awful weather days - wet and windy (monsoon like) on the top of a slightly exposed hill.  The awning was fantastic - no rain in, no bendy poles - WELL DONE DOREMA! 

The porch this weekend under went a similar drenching and typhoon in the Vale of York, same effect, nothing came in and the poles remained straight, WELL DONE INACA

annegor - never had any problems with our classic like  you have and we have the annexe as well and that been great although when someone sleeps in there you do get a bit of condensation.  We als  have the bradcot portico XL porch as the annexe fits that as well and thats been fine.

The only water we had on holiday in cornwall this year waas from rain at night which came up through ground sheet as we were slightly sloping but as regards awning never had any water through it. In fact due to material it literally runs off and doesn't soak in you can almost shake off rain droplets.

We did have small amount run down side of van through awning rail but that was because when we put it up one night the wind cight it and pulled at awning rail and caused it to leak but that was all sorted under warranty at the dealers.

Our big Bradcott Classic awning, (which we sold when we bought the new caravan in favour of a Portico XL porch awning) had carbon? nylon?  plastic?  poles, which were light, strong, easy to use and we never ever had any problems with them.  The Portico has this easy-use system and, quite frankly, the poles are a pig to manage.  Someone was living in fairyland when they named it Easy-Use

Jenny