Epic DIY car awning with a tarp (no roof racks – under R1,500)
Ever wondered what it must be like to live on the sun?
Mid-summer, on the east coast of Taiwan will give you a pretty good idea.
Here are a few things you can expect:
- If you don’t have tinted windows, or a sunshield up, your car dashboard will melt.
- If you leave a plastic kayak outside, it will melt.
- If you stand on a pavement for too long, the soles of your shoes will melt.
- If you dare to look up toward the sun… your face will melt.
Because of this, we tend to do fewer things like hiking in the summer. Rather, we like to get in the car, pump the AC and go exploring.
One of our favourite things to do is find a nice spot on the coast and set up a picnic. However, we still run into that issue of the sun.
We looked at a few different shade options including buying a car awning – the kind that mounts onto your car’s roof racks and swings out to provide shade, but, while they did look pretty cool, they were pretty expensive.
We also found this great video on how to make a cheap DIY version of the car awning, but it seemed like a little too much for what we needed.
So we decided to come up with our own universal car awning setup. Something with the following features:
- Effective.
- Cheap.
- Readily available parts.
- Quick to set up and take down.
- Minimum packing space.
Here’s what we came up with:
It took a lot of trial and error, trying out different setups, but finally, we settled on something that we now use all the time! (In fact, it turned out to be very similar to our DIY soft racks).
Not only does this DIY car awning provide great shade, but it’s also great in the wind and rain too.
Keen to give it a try? Check out the full video tutorial here – or read on for more instructions:
Making the DIY car awning
This is a very simple setup which is quick to put up and take down and very cheap. I’m going to go over the configuration I use the most, however, you can put this system up in so many ways that I’d encourage you to play around and see what suits you best.
To start with, here is a list of all the things you need. You can get everything you need from your local camping or hardware store, but just in case you want a few highly recommended options, I’ve included some suitable products with good reviews on Amazon.
Things you’ll need:
1 – A good tarp with eyelets on the corner for poles and guy ropes.
The one I use is a 3.5m x 3.5m nylon tarp which is a really practical size and provides loads of space and shelter.
2 – One nylon strap or lashing with a buckle on the end.
I use one that is 4m long which is plenty for what we’re doing, but I wouldn’t go any shorter than 3m.
3 – One large carabiner.
You can pick these up from your local hardware store for next to nothing. I’m sure you can get really high quality versions of them, but I’ve gone with really basic ones as they are much cheaper. The most important thing is that they have the little clip on the side.
4 – Three guy ropes and three small carabiners.
The carabiners aren’t essential, however they make attaching and especially detaching the guy ropes much quicker – and when you’re out working in the sun, speed is key.
We’ll go into more detail about how to put the carabiners onto the guy ropes in the next section.
5 – Three anchors.
If you’re going to be setting up your car awning in a grassy area, then all you really need are some solid tent pegs.
However, if you’re going to be setting up on beach sand or on a very stony surface that pegs can’t penetrate, you’ll need to use three sand bags with three lengths of nylon strapping and three more larger carabiners. I’ll explain how we do that later.
For the bags, I’ve got plastic ones from a nursery, but it’s probably better to go with a strong hessian or burlap material. Something that has natural fibres but can also handle being roughed up a bit.
6 – Tent poles.
You’ll need at least one tent pole for a basic lean-to configuration, although, I’m going to do this particular setup with 3.
Car awning preparation steps
Before we head outside, we’ll need to make a few preparation steps to make our lives easier when we’re setting up the car awning on location.
1 – Tie the guy ropes to the carabiners.
Feed the open end of the guy rope through the middle of the carabiner and double it back. Make a loop knot by wrapping the open end around the rope and tying a basic knot to secure it.
Repeat this process for all the other guys ropes you need.
2 – Prepare the nylon strap
Open the front doors of your car and feed the nylon strap over the roof and through the cab. Feed the open end of the strap through the buckle a little way. Make sure you have a lot of slack in the strap as you will a lot of room to tie your main anchor knot.
Stand outside at one of your car doors and tie a loop knot in the line, roughly a fist’s width in from the edge of your car’s roof.
3 – Make sandbag straps.
Cut a length of nylon strap into three lengths of roughly 80cm – 1m long.
Take one of the straps and tie a loop knot at each end, trying to ensure that they are as small as possible.
Clip one large carabiner at one end of the strap and repeat the process for the other two straps.
Car awning setup instructions
Now that we have everything prepared, we are ready to get outside and put our DIY car awning together.
Step 1: Park your car so that it offers the greatest sun and wind protection.
Step 2: Fill 3 sandbags to about halfway (use pegs if you’re not on soft sand).
Step 3: Roll down the sandbags and place them on a nylon strap that you have prepared with a loop knot at each end and a large carabiner clipped in. Feed the carabiner through the loop knot on the opposite end, and pull to tighten.
Step 4: Clip a guy rope onto each sandbag carabiner.
Step 5: Walk the sandbags out to roughly the position they will be in for the final setup.
Step 6: Feed a nylon strap that you’ve prepared with a loop knot through the cab of your car and position the knot roughly a fist’s width from the edge of the car and clip in a carabiner.
Step 7: Clip a corner of the tarp into this carabiner and walk the other three corners out, clipping them into the sandbag guy ropes as you go.
Step 8: Position the sandbags so that the tarp is nice and tight and then prop it up with 3 poles.
Here are a few other configurations of the car awning using this same process:
