Girard replaced window awning

In December 2023 the big window awning on the passenger side of our coach broke; it slammed open when extending it, and wouldn’t retract anymore. We got it repaired when in Red Bay, Alabama (home of Tiffin) in March 2024; see this previous post about that issue and repair.

Unfortunately, that repair didn’t last; after a few months it started making clunking noises when extending, and wouldn’t automatically retract. We could still use it, as I could push it back up and it’d stay retracted, but it wasn’t ideal.

So we made an appointment for when we were back in Red Bay in December with the Girard Awning Service Center next to Red Bay Acres (where we were staying), and got them to install a replacement.

Since the old awning was from a different manufacturer, they needed to do a few adjustments. They filled the holes from the old awning mounting with rivets, and painted them, after the old awning was removed (look closely just below the black slide topper rail):

Old awning removed

Old awning removed

Here’s the new window awning installed:

New window awning

Painted rivets from the old awning arm mount; not an entirely tidy paint job, but only visible in certain light:

New window awning

The left side is a bit tidier:

New window awning

They added an extra cord bracket (used to hold the awning open); they asked if we wanted to remove the old one, but we said it’s fine to leave it; we could use it to have a shallower angle. The lower one is the new one:

Extra bracket

The new awning open:

New window awning

New window awning

New window awning

Definitely a nicer product. We did consider replacing the two on the driver side too, so they’d match. But they are still functional, and it wouldn’t be cheap, so we decided to leave them as-is.