Electric Awning won't retract

OK, now what? When we arrived last Monday, the awning extended no problem. Tonight, a storm blows in and I can't get the stupid thing to retract. I hear something like a "clunk" when I hit the retract button, but no joy on getting any movement. I'm 200 miles from the dealer, sitting on a seasonal site, and I am not real keen on pulling up stakes and hauling it to them. And yes, I'm still on the 1 year warranty. Fortunately, the winds didn't last long, so the #@#@# thing didn't get blown off.

Wait long enough and the awning works again. No rhyme, no reason, just tried the switch again to extend and it moved. Hit retract, and it rolled up. Extended back out again...when I told it to. I thought I had a rig that escaped most of the problems I've read about here. Maybe not. Could be they're just starting to show their ugly faces.

check the Dometic website, there are instructions on how to manually retract it. But you have to have it serviced after you do that.

jmgratz said:

check the Dometic website, there are instructions on how to manually retract it. But you have to have it serviced after you do that.

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I got it working, but don't know why it failed to operate in the first place. It's not like I did anything besides push the stupid button. Does the manual retract operation involve using a chain saw??

No, but maybe.... You have to remove a screw and then it manually rolls up. there are several steps to it and it is a 2 person job. Not something you do except as a last resort in an emergency. There is a thermal cut off that will prevent it from moving. If you do not have the user's guide for it you can download it from the Dometic website.

The link is http://www2.dometicusa.com/pdf/3309960.007.pdf and
http://www2.dometicusa.com/awnings.php?product=32

Also there is a link to Dometic on the Portal page left side

Thanks, Jim. I found and downloaded the manual for it. Fortunately, I kept a spare strap and awning rod from my TT, cuz this rig didn't come with them. For now, it's working, but it's now something not to be trusted.

JohnDar said:

I got it working, but don't know why it failed to operate in the first place. It's not like I did anything besides push the stupid button. Does the manual retract operation involve using a chain saw??

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I like the Chain Saw idea --
I had the same problem once, but mine still rolled up, but it seemed very labored as it did. I called Heartland (my dealer went out of business) and they told me that the motors in the awnings are very low torque motors. If the wind kicks up, sometime the motor won't or can't over come the wind and the awning will just stall until the wind calms down. So, if bad weather is on the horizon i guess you best roll it up before the wind gets to strong

tommy

imchud said:

I like the Chain Saw idea --
I had the same problem once, but mine still rolled up, but it seemed very labored as it did. I called Heartland (my dealer went out of business) and they told me that the motors in the awnings are very low torque motors. If the wind kicks up, sometime the motor won't or can't over come the wind and the awning will just stall until the wind calms down. So, if bad weather is on the horizon i guess you best roll it up before the wind gets to strong

tommy

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What a confidence builder . I wonder if retrofitting to a manual awning when this one goes belly up is the way to go.

imchud said:

If the wind kicks up, sometime the motor won't or can't over come the wind and the awning will just stall until the wind calms down. So, if bad weather is on the horizon i guess you best roll it up before the wind gets to strong

tommy

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I had the opposite problem, I had to use a strap to keep mine from closing too fast in the wind. It is two person job, wife holds the button and I controlled it with the strap.

I don't think much of the electric awnings... Don't get me wrong, it's nice to hit a button and have it come out or sometims in... The thing I can't stand is you can't adjust the angle of the awning to help with water run off, or you can't lower it to clean it properly, just my 2 cents worth

imchud said:

I don't think much of the electric awnings... Don't get me wrong, it's nice to hit a button and have it come out or sometims in... The thing I can't stand is you can't adjust the angle of the awning to help with water run off, or you can't lower it to clean it properly, just my 2 cents worth

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My electric awning can be "tipped" to let water run off. just turn a knob and pull one side down and tighten knob. If you do both sides it might be low enough to clean

2010augusta said:

My electric awning can be "tipped" to let water run off. just turn a knob and pull one side down and tighten knob. If you do both sides it might be low enough to clean

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What brand of awning do you have? Got no knobs on the Dometic 9100. I'll have to rappel off the roof to clean mine.

JohnDar said:

What brand of awning do you have? Got no knobs on the Dometic 9100. I'll have to rappel off the roof to clean mine.

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It is an A&E or dometic, what ever Heartland is using now. it is NOT a Carefree.

So far, I've had no trouble at all with our electric awning. I hope I don't because I will never go back. I got real tired of going out in the middle of the night to put the awning back because a storm had come up.

Technology is a wonderful thing and takes a little while to get all the bugs worked out.

I have an electric Dometic 9100 awning which was really slowing down when retracting, to the point that one wondered whether in fact it was going to retract.

I took it to my dealer who tightened up the spring inside of it and that solved the problem.

As far as rain runoff is concerned, Dometic is providing a free retrofit arm for one side of the awning which enables you to drop one side for runoff purposes.

Ours is a Dometic Weather Pro and will automatically dip one end 9 inches to dump water from it then go back to resting position. Never had a water problem with it.

I have had no problem with my electric awning. I don't use it.

JohnDar said:

What brand of awning do you have? Got no knobs on the Dometic 9100. I'll have to rappel off the roof to clean mine.

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John,
Dometic has a retrofit kit free of charge to be able to lower one end of your electric awning like 2010augusta said. Unfortunately you have to have an authorized Dometic dealer or technician install it for whatever they want to charge. The pictures I have are from another forum that someone else here told us about. Anyway they at least show what they look like, and this is specific to the A&E 9100 awning.

BTW here is the link for the A&E 9100 manual
The manual states to use the pull strap provided, unfortunately we did not get one. Betting that no one did. Who has all the pull straps??????

Also,I too have been concerned about what happens if the darn thing should fail butis outweighed by the fact that when it does work it is really really nice. My wife would never even attempt to use any awnings we had on our fifth wheels in the past espescially if I wasn't around. They were too cumbersome and you had to be 7 foot tall to loosen the one end closest to the kingpin. So for us this electric awning has been great and so far we have been very pleased. But I will be doing my homework now and getting to know what it will take to retrct it in the event of a failure.

Hope things work out for the best,
Mark

No pull straps came with mine!