Shade over the patio on demand, gone again for the winter sun — no posts, no permanent roof.
A patio that works in both directions
A folding-arm awning turns a baking north- or west-facing patio back into a usable room through summer, then retracts to let the low winter sun back in — the seasonal argument a fixed roof simply can't make. With no posts, there's nothing interrupting the view down toward the conservation corridor that borders a lot of Southdowns gardens.
Fabric is solution-dyed acrylic, built to hold its colour under Gauteng's altitude-boosted UV, on a cassette that seals the arms and fabric away when retracted. Projection runs to roughly 3–4m over a wide span, enough to cover most entertaining patios in one piece.
- No posts — an uninterrupted view of the garden and conservation corridor
- Full cassette, semi-cassette or open mounting
- Crank handle or motorised, with a wind sensor as the responsible spec
- Solution-dyed acrylic fabric holds colour under Highveld UV
- Shade product, not rain product — a light drizzle at a pitch, never standing water
What an awning costs here
Guides run by the square metre of projection, installed — the shade thrown out over the patio rather than the wall width. Crank-operated: R3,500 to R5,500, an open or semi-cassette mount at the cheaper end and a full cassette at the dearer. With a motor and a wind sensor fitted, the range is R5,500 to R7,500.
Through a Highveld storm season the sensor is a specification decision rather than a sales one, argued at the measure rather than after the first big November afternoon. A compact awning attracts a minimum, since arms, brackets and crew do not halve with the projection. Fixing substrate can shift the figure too. Everything is measured at no cost and priced in writing before you commit.
Built for a highveld afternoon, not just a sunny one
An awning caught open in a highveld thunderstorm gust doesn't bend, it breaks — and Southdowns' more open, newer-planted stands haven't grown the mature tree cover that would otherwise take some of the wind's edge off. We fit every folding-arm awning here with a motor and a wind sensor as standard, so it retracts itself before the gust arrives whether or not anyone's home to react.
Manual, un-sensored awnings are the ones that end up replaced after a single bad afternoon. See our page on motorised blinds & automation for how the sensor logic works across the range.
Folding-arm awnings across the wider Irene belt
The same October–March storm pattern covers the whole area — Irene's older gardens, Cornwall Hill's larger stands and the newer cluster estates in Raslouw and Eldoraigne all get the same wind-sensored specification.
Get your patio measured before summer
Projection, fixing substrate and cassette colour are all easier to get right on site than over the phone — book a free in-home measure.