You are a Guest, please Join now to allow full access to the website and be part of our community. You can register by clicking the "Click Here to create an account" link at the top left of the page under our Logo
on saturday morning my father in law had just wound his awning out and was just going to get some pegs to secure the legs when a freak gust of wind blew under the awning and ripped it clean off the van,leaving 3 large holes,has anyone known of this happening ,is so was it covered on the insurance(he is fully comp). thanks
The following members of MHF thanked cashandben for this posting
Location: Battle Rd (A21) Robertsbridge. East Sussex 01-580-881288
Status: Offline
cashandben wrote:
on saturday morning my father in law had just wound his awning out and was just going to get some pegs to secure the legs when a freak gust of wind blew under the awning and ripped it clean off the van,leaving 3 large holes,has anyone known of this happening ,is so was it covered on the insurance(he is fully comp). thanks
Hi,
Cannot see any reason why it should not be covered under MH insurance, the awning is part of the MH.
You will need a specialist repairer as regards the holes, I take it the awning fabric is not damaged, but no doubt the housing is bent.
Regards
______________________________________________________________ Swift Main Dealer New & Preowned - UK FiammaCare Centre for all Fiamma products & spares
The following members of MHF thanked JohnsCrossMotorHomes for this posting
on saturday morning my father in law had just wound his awning out and was just going to get some pegs to secure the legs when a freak gust of wind blew under the awning and ripped it clean off the van,leaving 3 large holes,has anyone known of this happening ,is so was it covered on the insurance(he is fully comp). thanks
When you ask around you find it happens more often than you think.
It happened to us on the motorhome field in the centre of Brantome in France.
Stopped for some lunch after shopping in Perigueux, wound out the awning and although my son was standing next to one of the legs it had 'gone' in a second and the awning was stretched across the top of the van.
A couple of friendly nearby mh owners came to my rescue and helped undo the Fiamma from the van side and poke it in through the rear window so that we could dispose of it.
We were 'fortunate' that it didn't damage the van although the awning itself was a writeoff.
i feel a bit bad myself as he only came down for 1 night,he had man flu and did'nt feel like coming but i talked him into it,he was only here half hour then woosh the awning was gone.
The following members of MHF thanked cashandben for this posting
The exact same thing happened to westysprinter that posts on here, the cost to get repaired was suprisingly cheap. I am sure if you PM him he will give you details of who fixed it up for him.
If you want to keep using it silicone some small grp offcuts over the holes and it will keep the van on the road and watertight until the time comes when it can be taken off the road- keep the sealant as close to the holes as possible to avoid a larger repair area possibly being needed when the proper repairs get done and regularly check through the holes on the inside that it is still sealed.
The following members of MHF thanked pauwilson for this posting
on saturday morning my father in law had just wound his awning out and was just going to get some pegs to secure the legs when a freak gust of wind blew under the awning and ripped it clean off the van,leaving 3 large holes,has anyone known of this happening ,is so was it covered on the insurance(he is fully comp). thanks
Ouch now that is painful! Tell your father in law not to worry though as his insurance company will definitely cough up and I cannot see him coming across any problems, other than the having to be motorhomeless for a while!
A similar thing happened to us whilst we were touring around Morocco in our previous motorhome and we know only too well how your father in law must be feeling.
It was a beautiful hot and calm day when we decided to go off in our Smart car and so we left our motorhome behind on a campsite with our Omnistor awning still out. When we returned back to the site a few hours later we were met by the campsite warden who appeared quite distraught and just kept saying in his broken english "I'm so sorry, so sorry - big problems madame, monsieur" we replied in a puzzled tone that "we did not understand" and he answered "come, come with me" he dashed over to our pitch saying "problem, problem" whilst making the sound of the wind and waving his arms into the air frantically! I thought we must have been broken into or something and my heart was racing with frightened anticipation dreading what we were about to discover. When we got to our motorhome he pointed to our awning which was hanging off and all bent and buckelled! To cut a long story short, a freak wind had apparantley suddenly sprung up from nowhere and as we hadn't tied our awning down the wind had got under it and nearly ripped it from our vehicle! Fortunately for us, the only damage that was done, was to the actual awning itself (which was a total wreck) and the van's bodywork had thankfully survived unscathed.
The worried campsite warden was absolutely wonderful though and could not do enough to help us and he sent for a local repair man who turned up within minutes on his ancient little moped. He was lovely too but couln't speak a word of english and carried hardly any tools etc with him and I don't think he was at all familiar with this kind of problem. Anyway, my husband, the campsite warden and the little repair man managed between them to wind the broken awning back into the housing box and with a bit of string and a lot of luck it remained secure for the rest of our trip! We learnt a valuable lesson that day though and that was that no matter what the weather is like, just dont take any risks and it always pays to tie down your awning!
I rang our insurance company, who are Comfort Motorhome Insurance immediately it happened and they assured us we were indeed covered and not to worry. They told us to enjoy the rest of our trip and advised us to put in a claim and sort it all out when we returned home to the uk. True to their word, they did a brilliant job and within days we had our motorhome back to the dealers, where as soon as they submitted their quote we were given the ok from Comfort to go ahead with the work which involved us having to have a brand new Omnistor awning fitted.
I am sure this will turn out to be a similar situation for your father in law and his insurance company and I really hope he gets it all sorted out soon.
Sue
______________________________________________________________ Laugh and the world laughs with you - cry and you cry alone!
Bookmarks
Watched Topics
