Newell Gurus

We ordered a ZipDee awning to cover the living room slide several weeks ago.  It came in quickly and then I had the problem of how to install the thing.  It is not super-heavy but it is 14-foot long and bulky so doing it myself (or having my wife help) was not going to work.  I finally broke down and let the local RV shop (Madison RV in Madison, AL) do the work.  They were expensive but the awning looks and works great (while it was in the shop) - we are on a short trip this weekend but will try it out when we get home this afternoon and will post pictures.  We purchased the version that extends out over the windows to serve as an awning also.  There are no locks on the main aluminum cover so you do not have to worry about forgetting to unlock them and ripping the awning off (ask the previous owner about this!)...  So now I have a white small awning on the passenger side rear bedroom window, a large multi-colored (burgundy/white) main passenger-side awning and now a light tan slide awning... Being a person that likes things to match this drives me crazy but at least we usually don't use them all at the same time... We will be ordering the bedroom slide awning soon and installing it.  
The next change will be to the ugly, cheap awning the PO put on the coach and replace it with a nice Girard awning (without arms)... Maybe I should mount it to the top of the roof like the new coaches use... 
The RV dealer also fixed our Maxxair fans and cleaned the roof for me - about $750 for a full day's work was not bad at all - their shop rate is about $125 so they are very conservative with their time... I would recommend their work to anyone.

Assuming that the ZipDee has the metal cover to encase the fabric when it is closed (I suspect they all do now), you should invest in the awning travel latch that attach to the metal cover and the side of the coach. I purchased mine from ZipDee but I don't see them listed on their site now although the installation instructions are http://awningsbyzipdee.com/media//DIR_50...ffd524.pdf They are listed for sale here: https://airstreamsupply.com/New-Awnings

If you ever travel in a high wind hitting the side of the coach with the awning, it can unfurl with or without the other locks. I have seen it in person on I-10 in Arizona with a former member of this site when we were traveling together. I installed the travel locks on all 5 ZipDee awnings on my coach. They are fairly easy for one person to install and are easy to operate.

As I posted here before, I installed ZipDee motorized kits in my awnings. Did ZipDee mention that they now have these kits?

I had the rear awning unfurl while driving across Kansas. Thought someone was jumping around on the roof. Stopped, looked at everything, got out my ladder and looked at the roof. Nothing out of the ordinary. A few miles later I heard it again and tilted my Ramco mirror up and saw the awning unfurling! Scared the bejesus out of me! Pulled over and used rope to tie it down. Later added the latches.
In my opinion the latches are a necessity. You'd hate to destroy your new awning.

I like the motorized option but they would have to work in conjunction with the slide moving in/out...
I will check into the latches...

We had the slide toppers on our '98 and I didn't like them. They did keep debris off the top of the slide but they flapped loudly in any wind. Woke me up quite a few times. That was on my list to remove and remount them on the slide itself before we sold out.