We happened to acquire one of these Patty O'Shade awnings while at the campground here in Fort Myers Beach.  If anyone is wondering if they really work we can say that they work wonderfully.  It keeps it nice and cool under the awning and at least doubles the shade.  For us this winter in FL it was a welcome addition to our unit.  We have the coffee color and it matches our awning perfectly and it slides easily in and out of the utility track of the awning.  Since both the awning and the shade are made by dometic it is a perfect fit and a perfect match.
http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/product/patty-oshade/1489  

Barry and Sue,

I know this is a year old post, but I now have some questions about your experience with the Patty O'Shade.  We decided to get an awning shade and are looking at the Patty O'Shade and the Carefree brand.  I like your comment that the Patty O'Shade coffee color matches your awning, we also have the Classic Umber exterior and our Dometic awning is probably the same color as yours.

The Carefree brand is 6 feet tall where the Patty O'Shade is 4.5 feet tall, it would seem that 4.5 feet would give plenty of extra shade without having another 1.5 feet of material to deal with.  In extreme cases I could lower the outer edge of the awning to get the shade closer to the ground.  Do you find the 4.5 feet to be plenty of shade material?

Our awning is 16.5 feet long, the Patty O'Shade comes 10 or 15 feet long.  I am considering going with the 10 foot one and sliding it along the awning roller as necessary, again to have less material to deal with.  Which do you have, any thoughts?

I have read that some roll their awning up with the Patty O'Shade installed, they do this only when stationary in camp at night or when windy, they all remove the shade when traveling.  What do you do?

Thanks, Bob A

Bob

    We have the 15' patty-o-shade and we find the 4.5 feet to be plenty of shade.  We also find the patty-o-shade to fit perfectly in the awning since they are both made be dometic.  We had a chance to examine the Carefree brand but noticed that the spline might just be too thick to fit nicely into the anwing track.  A friend of ours bought one and had to take it back because it would not slide into the track with ease.  You had to pull on it so hard that we feared breaking his awning. 

     We do roll it up with the awning when we are sitting at camp.  We would not travel with it rolled up.  It is super easy to put on and take off.  The 15' fit perfectly on our awning.  We have the electric awning.

Barry and Sue

Barry and Sue,

Thanks for the great info, having the shade that is made by the awning maker looks to be the best way to go.

We didn't think we needed one until this past winter when we spent 6 weeks in Arizona.  At a couple campsites, we were oriented such that the afternoon sun was setting directly on the awning side of the RV.  There isn't much shade out in the desert so I hung a tarp I had from the awning.  It looked really bad and we (my wife) decided that we needed to carry a better looking awning shade.

Thanks, Bob

Bob,

    It is amazing the heat that is cut down by the patty o shade.  We would have six people huddled behind it just to get away from the afternoon sun.

Sue

A very timely post for us.  We have been discussing getting a Patty O'Shade, and wondered how it would fit/work.  Great info--thanks.