Hi we've just got the vango Maldives 400 airbeam awning but the roof is awful it's terrible and sags and collects water. We can't get it taute at all. Does anyone else have this issue and if so how if at all did you fix. Help
We have a more conventional shaped awning, and got a roof extension pole. Helps the shape no end. Check whether there is a small pocket sewn into the awning at the too centre near the beam pocket - this is to accept the flattened end of the extending pole. Ours also had a pocket next to the rail strip, but I replaced this with the rubber foot, as it moved in the wind and knocked against the caravan wall.
Even looking on the official Vango website it looks like the roof would be a bit "billowy" in winds which would then cause rain to pool on the roof.
Sorry to say Sandy it looks like a bad design and you may have bought a bit of a lemon.
A bought the only thing I can think of is what Moreprints has suggested and use extending poles between the air beams. My Vango Airbeam has extra supporting air beams that go between the main beams with just Velcro tabs to connect them, Im surprised Vango didn't do something similar here.
My Kampa Rally Air Pro can hardly be accused of having a saggy roof, but a small rain puddle does collect just above the side to side mid-roof support airbeam, never gets big enough to be a problem as self draining to a degree, but just about the last bit to dry out after rain, and wise to give it a little push up to shed puddle when trying to dry awning before packing away. Not just my awning, friends with same model have same puddle on theirs too.
Quote: Originally posted by Monty15 on 18/8/2020
My Kampa Rally Air Pro can hardly be accused of having a saggy roof, but a small rain puddle does collect just above the side to side mid-roof support airbeam, never gets big enough to be a problem as self draining to a degree, but just about the last bit to dry out after rain, and wise to give it a little push up to shed puddle when trying to dry awning before packing away. Not just my awning, friends with same model have same puddle on theirs too.
First time out of bag April 28 2021. Brand new. We just pitched up 2 days ago and rained both days. Water pooled badly even with heavy shower and started to soak through the fabric. Worst awning we’ve had and going to write to Vango to complain. Have electric things in awning and can be a fire or electrical hazard. Not impressed at all and have had 3 previous vango awnings with no problems.
Just looked again at the design of the Maldives awning and as far as I can tell it only has one air-beam that ties back to the caravan, and it is relying totally on the storm straps at the front to pull the rough taught.
This is a bit of a design oversight, they really should have had at least three air-beams, one for the apex, and two eight side to provide the rigidity the roof will need.
Ill admit it look a pretty awning, very unusual and possibly it was more design over function, shame because other than that it looks great.
The air beam only goes side to side and doesn’t connect to the caravan at all. The roof is tensioned by guy straps acting on the roof by the two steel poles at the outside edge of the awning. We found we can increase the tension by adding a guy line that acts directly on the pole, but with the best of efforts it’s still billowy.
We have however had problems with it, in that one of the plastic buckles snapped on the flat guy strap that’s permanently attached, the pulling loop on the end of the kader tape came unstitched first time I tried to use it and there’s a big section of mud wall binding where it looks like it was stitched, but there’s no thread.
We used it 21 nights in two months and think that’s a bit shabby.
It’s been back to Vango (They had it over 3 months, albeit in lockdown) and they’ve repaired some of these things but the mud wall binding wasn’t done, they say they stitched some mud wall binding, so can only presume there was another issue....
Supplier says they will only send it back to Vango and Vango may charge to fix this extra bit?..
Anyway, won’t be buying another one of these.
As said before it looks good, is actually very big and as all the panels can zip out and be replaced with flyscreens etc is actually quite practical space, let down by the roof and some quality issues...
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Topic: Vango Maldives 400 airbeam awning roof
via mobile 15/8/2020 at 8:58pm
