Top Five Shade Sail Tips
About This Video
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Video Transcription
Hi, this is Andy, and right away I want to give you five important tips for installing your own professional quality shade sail.
Tip one: Wherever possible, avoid installing triangular shade sails. Why? Because they give very little shade.
You see, shade sails are made with curved edges and triangular shade sails accentuate that curvature. The end result is something we commonly refer to in the industry, as the g-string effect.
Here’s a good example of a bad example: I climbed up on the roof took this photo. The home-owner’s aim here was to shade his table, and as you can see, he ended up with a very disappointing result.
Tip two: Use HYPAR designs. HYPAR shade sails are an industry standard. Here’s a typical example. A HYPAR shade sail is simply where the high and low points are installed diagonally opposite, to create a twist in the sail. This not only gives a great architectural effect, but it creates large areas of usable shade.
Tip three: Get the foundations right the first time. This is one of the most common mistakes for the DIY shade sail installer. They simply don’t dig the holes deep enough, and in the first strong wind, the posts move and the whole job is ruined. Bottom line: deep holes, strong poles and plenty of concrete.
Tip four: Allow for the take offs. This simply means shade sails need to be tensioned at the corner and you have to allow for this. It’s a common mistake people make. They buy a 5 metre shade sail and then put the posts 5 metres apart. What they end up with is something like this, a saggy sail, and you don’t want that.
Tip five: Plan for the curvature. Shades are also made with curved edges which erode your coverage. Best if I can give you here is to say, plan your sail to be as symmetrical as possible. This sail works well, it’s about 10 by 10 meters. This sail doesn’t, it’s about 8 by 4 meters, or twice as long as it is wide, and that accentuates the curvature.
The bottom line is this: installing a shade sail isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but if you follow some basic principles, it doesn’t have to be hard. In fact, it can be a lot of fun and a great sense of achievement when it’s done.
DIY Shade, shade sails made easy was written to ensure that you avoid the common mistakes most people make and end up with a professional quality result.