Video Transcript for Solera RV Awnings Replacement Roller with Fabric Review

Hello, shade seekers. It's Brad here at etrailer. And today we're taking a look at the solara replacement, roller fabric and awning for your camper. Now these are gonna be available in different measurements all the way from 10 foot, up to 21 foot, and also available in a variety of colors. Now we're gonna walk you through some of the standout features and also how to measure to make sure that you get the proper one. And we're gonna walk you through a typical installation as well.

So let's get started. So as you probably know, having an awning on your camper is great because it really does give you a whole lot of real estate. You can kind of move the party from inside the camper to the outside and that way everyone has space. And it's gonna protect you from that sun beating down in the summer months or a sprinkling occurring maybe in spring. Either way, you get to hang out with all your friends underneath the cover of the awning.

Now over time that sun can kind of break this down and being out in the elements, it can actually bend the rollers, or you can just get a mold buildup. Whatever it may be, you may wanna replace that. Well, without having to replace the entire system. You're actually able to do that with our replacement roller awning and fabric. When upgrading your awning, you can actually choose from a variety of different colors, including a solid white, a solid black, or you also have different fade colors.

Here we have our blue fade. There's also other fade available as well. Now the wind's kind of playing havoc here on our awning today, but you can see this little overhang that's gonna be really nice for when it rains. It's actually gonna have that rain running off rather than channeling back. Now also, it does give you a little bit of extra shade as that sun can be at a certain angle that might block that out a little bit better.

The fabric used on the solara. It really sets it apart from other competitors. Reason being, the fabric is anti scuff, anti mildew, and it holds up generally better than other ones on the market. Now it's also cold crack protected to negative 25 degrees Fahrenheit. So even if you're storing it over winter, should hold up for a long time. Many times when these are retracted back, if there's hunting moisture, that's not gonna really be able to breathe out. So sometimes that mold and kind of just brown spots will start to form on this while having that anti mildew buildup is gonna keep this looking nice for a long time. Now, keep in mind that the replacement roller and fabric is not gonna actually include the arms. So you need to make sure that you already have your existing arms and you can actually replace just the fabric. But sometimes that can actually be kind of tricky as it does wanna roll up. This is pretty drop in and go, and it replaces your old actual system. Now, why would you replace the roller Well, our customer that came in today, you'll see in our installed portion, actually had a dip in the roller causing it to kind of be uneven as it extends and retracts. So here we have it actually retracted all the way back and you can see it looks great. It follows the roofline very well. It's got a nice white color and it looks just fresh having that new awning up there. So now as we actually extend, you can see it's a nice smooth operation and it's gonna give you that coverage within a minute or so of rolling out. So now with this out, the sun's not blinding me and I can actually hang out here and enjoy the outdoor space. The only thing missing is some friends, some chairs, and some cold drinks. Getting a new roller and fabric already attached is gonna make that installation a nice and quick, easy one for you to do. The first step that you're gonna wanna do is measuring your actual arms from center to center. Now it is gonna differentiate from the actual measured size of the roll itself of the awning. So first get your measurement of your arms and you are gonna need an extra set of hands for a lot of the steps here, as well as a few ladders, because we're gonna be working at height and also having something that's extremely long. It's gonna be nice to have that extra set of hands to help you get it in place. You put that . So with our measuring tape center to center on the arms, we are right at 18 foot. Now this is what you're actually going to be using when you place your order on the roll itself. So the roll is gonna be a little bit shorter than that overall 18, but you're gonna be going off the center point of your arms when placing that order. So once you have your arms extended out a little bit, you're gonna want to make sure that they're supported and not going to actually open up anymore. I feel like the best way to do that here, is we're gonna run some zip ties just around where our strut is here. And that's just gonna kind of keep this bound up and that way it's not gonna move up. So grab some long zip ties and go ahead and secure those up. Maybe you have a bungee cord or something along those lines. It's pretty much just gonna be kind of our fail safe here to kind of keep that from falling out. So you can see that is supported. Go ahead and do the other side as well. So now we're gonna wanna go ahead and take our covers off. And these are attached just by some Phillips head screws. So we'll go ahead and remove those. Now, make sure that you hold onto all your hardware as you're gonna need that for re installation. Now on the inside, you're gonna see that there are some slots and you can put a small flat head in there, but I was able to kind of just press that plastic to separate the clips, have a few of them there, and then your face should come off. This back one should also just kind of slide up here. Now, make sure you are holding onto that hardware that was in those holes there. Now we can go ahead and repeat that same process on the other side. So now we're going to be taking off this square head screw here, and that just attaches it to this arm. So we're gonna be taking that out. Now, you're gonna wanna be careful because it might not be supported. So I actually have an extra set of hands here in the middle and that way, if it does start to move, we at least have that supported weight-wise. So let's go ahead and take this out. Once you have your screw out, we're gonna go ahead and repeat that process on the other side. So now you're gonna wanna look here in the channel. There's gonna be a screw that's run through there, and that's just to kind of keep this from moving around. Go ahead, ours is a Philips head, go ahead and remove that. And there's gonna be another one on the other side as well. So now you're going to wanna have a few extra sets of hands with ladders because we're gonna be sliding this out. So makes sure that you have an ample space to go either forward or back. Either way, we're gonna be taking this roll out. And first step is gonna be separating it here. Now be careful because this can be tension. This should just slide out like that. This one doesn't feel like there's a whole lot of tension on it, which is good. You may have to kind of wiggle it, but then you should have it come out. So make sure you're separated from the other side. And then you can kind of work this down. Got it. So we're gonna be feeding our new one back in just kind of the opposite way that we took it out. But you can see here, this channel has a nice bend here and that's gonna just make it easier to actually fit that piece into the slide. So if yours doesn't have that, you might wanna just grab just spare pliers and kind of bend that down just to make that channel a little bit easier to load that in when you have it supported. So now orientation wise, you're gonna wanna make sure that the actual part that we're sliding in, it's flat there and curling around in that way, it's not gonna trap stuff as it rolls up. And I'm gonna just peel these off as we go one by one. So just get that black tube fed into there. And you're gonna wanna have someone here, kind of following this to make sure that it's going in without catching that metal. And then as you're working along, you're gonna have some support down there and just feed it in. So while feeding it down, my help Kevin down there, he already put his in the slot, we're gonna do the same things that way it's supported. And you're gonna see this white hole needs to align with the hole here on the actual arms. Now you may have to kind of wiggle this back and forth 'cause it is slotted. So you want that to line up properly. And part of that might be accomplished by pushing that arm back just a little. And then once you get those holes in line, we'll be able to put our hardware back in. And then we'll go ahead and do the same on the other side. Now, we're gonna wanna put our screws back in that channel to hold it in place, but we also wanna make sure that it's actually centered up. So I'm gonna just measure here from our bracket to the end of our canvas here, and that's gonna be three and a half inches. So I'm gonna double check the other side, make sure that it's the same, and then we can get that extra screwed in. So I've gone ahead and got these centered up. So now I'm gonna go ahead and put our self-tappers back in where we had them. Now we'll be putting our caps back on. Now these are actually side specific. You're gonna have this cutout here and also this hole here, and that's gonna be on the drive side. So you can see this little nut here. That's gonna fit into that hole. And then your backside here should align pretty easily. So go ahead, you can get this installed and this should slide in. And then this should cap around it. Now let's go ahead and we'll take our support. Zip ties off, and we're gonna actually test this to make sure that it's working properly. So it looks pretty great extended. The real test is gonna be when we roll it back up. We're gonna be looking for any seams. And that could be just the tension of it being slightly off from one side to the other. So as you roll it up, you might wanna just to have an extra set of eyes, keeping look to make sure nothing's binding up. So now we can see we have our arms fully retracted, and you're gonna see that there's no weird tension going on. A lot of times you'll see wrinkles if they are offset. And if that's the case, you're gonna wanna adjust it kind of side to side and finding that sweet spot. That way it's not gonna have a crease down it. And it's also not gonna have odd tension on either side of the arms. Having this balanced out, it looks like we have our install done incorrectly. And that was a look and installation of the solara replacement awning roller and fabric. Thanks for watching..