My cousin Lee offered to look at our awning with me, so I ventured off later in the day to see what we could come up with. When we got up and had a look, it was quickly evident that there wasn’t any wood left where the left side of the awning was supposed to bolt into so we weren’t going to be able to fix the awning itself – today. What we could do was secure the eavestrough back to the trailer and seal it all up.
We spent a couple of hours up there between trying to dry the area first with a hair dryer, and then screwing in the eaves and caulking it up well to ensure no more water got into that area of the roof.
We aren’t quite sure what the fix will be yet. This is one of those ‘making it up as we go’ jobs. I am wondering if I can’t install some steel plating across the entire top so that we have something to screw the awning into, install a new eavestrough and drain, and then re-install the awning?
I’m thinking in the interim, it’s best to get that awning off of there in case we have a bad storm. I’d hate to have it destroyed while we figure out a fix. The dream is to eventually build a deck with an overhang for protection from the elements so the hope is to not spend much time or money on an awning that hopefully won’t always be needed anyway.
It’s just one more example out of many, of how emergency repairs keep jumping the cue around here. I know, it’s also a sign of too many old things like a 100+ year-old house, 10-year-old vehicle, 20-year-old RV, and a 30+ year-old boat.