Shade sails are increasingly popular all over the country, but they have certain limitations. In places close to the home where you want to create shade, an awning may be a more appropriate type of installation to go for. They offer greater flexibility and have a number of other advantages which shade sails don't provide. What are the benefits of having an awning fitted to your home?
Adjustability
One of the most important advantages that an awning offers over a shade sail is the ability to reposition it. Of course, an awning is fixed in one place just like a shade sail. However, an awning can be extended outwards and down whereas a shade sail cannot. As such, you can have the awning dropped when the sun is low in the sky in the evening to continue to make a shadow just where you want it. Shade sails are rooted to the spot and have few ways that you can adjust them.
More Attractive
There can be little doubt that shade sails look good in certain situations. However, they need robust supports in order to have them secured in high winds. This usually means tough steel columns, which can look a little industrial in a domestic setting. Awnings are just as tough, but because they are permanently fixed to your house, they are already well supported. This means more delicate engineering is needed to support them, thereby making them more suited in appearance to a home environment. In very high winds, they can be retracted to save them from damage.
Lighting
Manufacturers like Luxaflex Awnings provide integrated lighting into their products nowadays. This means that you don't have to sit in the dark when the late afternoon turns into dusk. Usually, lightweight LED spotlights are built into the fabric of the awning so that it becomes a shelter from the elements which you can continue to use well after the sun has gone down. This is ideal for awnings which are fitted over patios and terraces unlike shade sails which tend to be fitted in other areas of the garden.
Motorisation
One thing that puts some people off awnings is the manual control system they often come with. They either worry that children will play with it or that they will need to put a lot of physical effort into raising and lowering their awning once it has been installed. This is not the case with contemporary awnings, however. Unlike shade sails, adjusting an awning can be a hassle but not with a motorised control system which does the work for you.
