We bought one of the domed canopies along with the optional side wall about three weeks ago and have used it every weekend since. We already had a flat sun canopy that had been made locally, lovely it is as well, except it wasn't quite big enough, the fig 8 blew off when it was windy and it filled with water when it rained. This one is goes from the back of the van, beyond the open sliding door, to a couple of inches over the front door providing lots of shade during the hot weather. It's made of a thick fabric so while it isn't truly waterproof it protected us during a heavy thunderstorm last week. The van fixing is a thick rubber beading which locks onto both sides of the gutter making a really sturdy fastening which actually takes a bit of practice to get on properly. Two segmented poles are provided to give the dome shape and the poles slip into reinforced pockets at each corner. The side wall will fit on either end and is held at the top by a Velcro strip The outer edge clips to the pole using toggles on elastic and is nice and secure. There is a problem with the design, as we found out on a windy campsite last weekend. Because the side wall is for either end it has toggles down both edges which means there are unused toggles on the van side. We couldn't stand the tap, tap, tapping of the unused toggles on the side of the van so at about 2am I was dispatched outside to take the side wall down. I intend to modify mine by removing the toggles and replacing them with Velcro. It worked brilliantly when we used it to give shade to two vans at the same time and made a lovely private area away from the wind and sun. Lots of people have come and spoken to us with the sunshade up and all the comments have been positive, mostly along the lines of how well it looks with an old campervan. We had been sent poles for a different canopy originally but I emailed Julie from puddle-jump and she was very apologetic and immediately promised to send us new poles. I love the canopy, the first time I put it up it took me about 15 mins but after a few goes I've got that down to about 5 or 6 mins. Because of the tapping noise from the van side toggles I can't give it 10 out of 10 but I think it's certainly worth a 9/10.
I like it where did you get it from? , we have one of the flat retro ones but it has same rubber gutter mount as that one ,which i agree is great ,holds really strong. Do you start at one end and push down on with thumb and work along , find it quite easy doing it that way and standing on step helps too
Yes that sounds like our one. That's how we put ours on but it does need a bit of practice to get good at it.
It looks great on there, love the stripe! Great to have the review as well. I've been thinking of getting a sunshade as we have the original tent from '73 which is great, but almost not worth the "put up" for a single night stay on the road!
That's a great looking sunshade, we have been thinking about getting one like midmusq says for those one nighters. Thanks for the review sANDYbAY
Got to admit I much prefer the look of the simple "sheet off gutter" shades, although it sounds like they're probably not as good in wind or rain as these.
