Slide Seals & Awnings

[cmillsap]

Posted for future Prevost owners.

Replacing a leaking Prevost slide seal is expensive. One way to help protect your slde seal from getting punctured is to extend your awnings over the slides. This is especially important if you are parked under or near trees. Pine needles are sharp and pine cones can easily damage the seal if left on the slide top when retracting.

Prevost included an air blow-off in the retract cycle which helps to clear the slide top of some debris but sometimes the debris gets blown up against the outer edge/lip of the slide top where the seal inflates against the slide top after retracting. Left there, the debris can damage the seal. Trees sap can also cause the seal to stick to the slide top and cause it to tear on a subsequent slide extension.

A Prevost equipped with slides is usually also equipped with arm-less awnings. They are great but susceptible to being damaged by wind gusts. These awnings are usually equipped with wind sensors to automatically retract the awnings if high winds are present. They are somewhat untrustworthy though and you should never depend on them to retract your awnings. Consequently, it is not a good practice to leave you coach with the awnings extended. You may come back to damaged awnings and they are not cheap to repair or replace either.

So, if you are parked under or near trees, use your awnings as much as possible to keep debris off your slide top. When you are leaving and before retracting your slides, it’s a good practice to insure the tops are free of debris.