I'm thinking about the summer already and about putting an awning into the camping mix... The easiest to buy require some sort of caravan rail or figure of eight... Has anyone give down this route of attaching a structure to the roof guttering...
And any general ideas on a good awning or utility tent... If love an old canvas one, but they are hard to find (any offers...)... And I don't want to double the size of the van... Just something to sit in...
Thinking about the same - trouble is need it to be rain and slightly wind proof for the UK. Been looking at the roll out ones but look proper ugly, this sounds like a good idea if they have one in a better material.
We've got one of the Suncamp utility tents and they are great. It's easy to fit it to the rear of an Auto-sleeper using the hinges of the roof as anchors but you would need to be inventive with the Maidstone. The problem is the outstretched door on the tent sags if it rains as the angle it sits at, when attached to the van, isn't steep enough for the water to run off. The Dubenhams one does look particularly groovy though the darkside shops sell gutter mounting kits so you don't need to fit a permanent rail and you could use on either tent.
I read it as they come with a clamp attachment to the gutter but can use other methods too if you have them on your van already (figure of 8, slide in rail)...essentially there are 3 attachment methods bit they have a gutter clamp one out of the box.
Just ordered this as fed up spending an hour pegging a tarpaulin to the gutter and if blowing off every 5 mins (and collecting rain). Look like the most sturdy I could find having a pole that runs across the front as well also it doesn't need to have something permanently attached to the van - at £80 the price is pretty good too and the 3m one ordered should run the full length of the van allowing the door to be open and stay dry. I'll report how well it works after the Easter break.
Will probably have my full rear drive away awning coming up for sale for Summer - it's a cracking thing with bedroom, acres of space, zipped in ground mat, windows etc. Just too big for us as we tend to pitch somewhere for a night, 2 max so don't want to spend 40 mins getting this erected each time. Will put in for sale when get time.
. A couple of wind breaks to close it off a bit and job done
