Does anyone have any ideas for external shading?
In our new place we have heaps of easterly windows and a few northerly ones, too. These have been great for solar heating but soon we will be moving into warmer weather.
My thoughts so far:
* I'm not a fan of the total darkness induced by external shutters or blinds but may go with those on a bedroom and study with eastern windows
* A pergola with deciduous vine sounds good in theory but it would have to be very large -- we have 11 m of east wall and 8.5 m of north wall to protect in the living area (with 6 m and 5.5 m of 1.8m high windows respectively) plus a couple of other eastern BR windows.
* Angled louvres might be a goer for the north wall but obviously that doesn't work for the east wall
* The east side has a good view and will be our outdoor entertaining space so blocking it up with large trees is not an option
* My wife is leaning towards sail shades which could be removed in summer.. but I can't see how you can easily make a long skinny rectangle out of nearly equilateral triangles.
* I am leaning towards a roof with some kind of bolt-on bolt-off removable panels. Steel with RFL in summer, clear polycarbonate in winter.
Any thoughts??
Edit to add: we may not actually need much or anything on the north as we have eaves