Browse Forums Outdoor Living 1 Dec 30, 2012 5:36 pm Hi guys, New to the forum, cant believe ive never stumbled across this before. Im hoping someone out there can help? Planning on a DIY shade sail installation over a direct north castlemaine slate outdoor area adjoining the house with three north facing large windows. The slate in beautiful but the heat it reflects onto the house is ridiculous. The slate butts against the house and is 2850mm going out from house brick to edge of garden bed between paving and fenceline, the garden bed is 600mm to the fence. My plan is to put in removeable shade sail poles as we would only need them for Dec to mid March being in Melbourne, removeable being they will somehow slot into a sleeve concreted into the ground. Ive done some research and main things I can gather is the poles will need to lean 10 degrees away from the house for sail tensioning and the they will need to go about 900mm deep into the ground for decent stability. Where i am stuck is what angle should they be on to keep the summer sun out and does the pole side need to be higher than the house side, and should i fix to fascia or brick? Has anyone done anything like this before themselves? Also best place to buy the sails, dont like the ones from Bunnings - cheap and nasty? Would like to avoid buying a custom made one but given the space i have to work with i think i may have to. Thanks Ryan. Re: DIY Removeable Shade Sail 2Dec 30, 2012 6:00 pm I'd definitely go for custom rather than a Bunnings job. The ones from bunnings are only in a handful of fixed sizes, and based on either a square or an equal sided triangle. It would be rare that your application will exactly fit one of these readymade options. I've used this mob twice: http://www.shadesailsonline.com/ Note the site is pretty crappy, but both times I got exactly what I needed. Turnaround was about 10 days. I had the same issue as you - an outdoor tiled area which heats up in direct sun. I put in some fixed anchor points and hooked up the sail with turnbuckles. At the end of summer I can just unhook everything and fold up the sail until next spring. You need to have at least one anchor point elevated so that the rain rolls away. Assuming the structure of your cabinetry is good then I would DIY everything as follows: - replace your counter tops entirely, - replace all drawer runners with soft close… 1 4750 Re my second point – yes exactly. And often it may take additional time if the manufacturer recommends no more than X meters… 3 5579 |