Awning Separation Repair

[oyarsa]

Any suggestions how I fix this? Or do I? I am capable of some repairs, but I would say I am a novice.

I believe this was caused because we did not cover our trailer early enough this past winter. We received several inches of snow that managed to accumulate on the awning, despite it being retracted.

I have not tried screwing the screws back in. I assume there was originally some kind of adhesive as well as the screws?

[fj12ryder]

That's the main reason for the butyl tape, it's supposed to help seal around the screw holes so that doesn't happen.

[mosseater]

When my screw holes stripped out holding the transition metal strip from front tin to roof rubber, I found it was because there was leakage around the screws and the wood had rotted away. Make sure the sub structure is sound before just screwing it back in place.

[Grit_dog]

To the above discussion, OP just determine what’s there now and decide for yourself. At a minimum id pooky the screw holes.
If they’re stripped you can do a few things short of larger screws.
Epoxy the holes full and re drill a pilot hole. Or, what I commonly do, insert a small piece of stranded copper wire or a cutoff zip tie and then the screws will hold.

And yes they’re probably stripped as they obviously didn’t unscrew looking at the pic.

[fj12ryder]

Well, considering you can see the seam of the roof, and the awning is below that seam, the black thing in the picture, and if you blow up the picture you can see that there is something that sure looks like butyl tape under the awning rail, you could possibly be all wet. Perhaps even wrong, vehement doesn't necessarily mean right.

And my awning is past the edge of the roof membrane, so maybe you could be incorrect.

[StonedPanther]

Where does anyone see butyl tape under the OP's loose awning rail? Also there is not generally anything under it nor is there supposed to be other than the roof membrane.

They put the roof membrane down leaving the sides wild a few inches, then the awning rail (And gutter rail streetside) gets attached over that wild membrane edge. The wild edge is then trimmed off under the extrusion and the top edge is sealed with non sag lap sealant. That's it. If you put butyl tape under those rails and the top sealed joint fails, which it will, the water then stays behind the rail, above the butyl, and eventually makes its way (seep) into the wall assembly. That water is supposed to be able to weep out the bottom of the rail between the roof membrane and rail itself should the top seal fail.

Now if some of you folks are obsessed with putting butyl tape under those extrusions go right ahead. Just be prepared to constantly clean it off when it oozes out the bottom over time and when the top sealant joint fails be ready to rot out / delam the wall panel.

In the OP's case either the screws were over-tightened and stripped, were not the right length, or snapped off for whatever reason. Those screws should be into the square aluminum tube at the top of the wall panel which is part of the lamination sandwich.

[fj12ryder]

Yes, Butyl tape, not Eternabond.

[ford_truck_guy]

Like said above, " to do it right " unscrew the entire piece.. add NEW Butyl tape under the mounting strip ... also, make sure the awning is retracted when you tackle this, I believe it will make it a whole bunch easier....

[fj12ryder]

Generally there will be a strip of something like Eternabond behind the strip before it is screwed down. It's unlikely you'll be able to simply screw in the pulled out screws. You'll likely have to go bigger, and/or put in some expandable screws in a couple places.

To do it right, you should probably unscrew everything, pull the whole strip off, and reaseal and rescrew.

[ken56]

Put new sealant under the strip and screw it back down.