Awnings, Pergolas & Screens

A retractable awning winds out on a motor and folds flat into its cassette when the weather turns. Round here that can happen twice in an afternoon. Fabric is solution-dyed acrylic, about 300 grams per square metre, so the colour holds instead of going chalky down the sunny side. Projections of 2.5m to 4m cover most patios.

The wall matters more than the awning. A 4m awning is a lever with 80kg on the end, so the brackets want solid brick or a concrete lintel. Render over insulation board catches people out, because the fixings have to reach past 100mm of foam to anything solid. Craig would rather know on the free visit than halfway through drilling. Pitch it flatter than 14 degrees and rain pools in the middle. The fabric stretches and never sits right again.

Freestanding pergolas are the step up. Aluminium frame, motorised roof that opens right back for sun and shuts watertight when the rain starts. That buys you April and October instead of a fortnight in July. They cost proper money. If you sit out four times a summer, an awning does most of the same job for a quarter of the price.

Insect screens are the dullest thing on this page and the one people ring me back about. Retractable mesh in a slim side cassette, soft close so it does not snap back at the frame. That is for the back door you leave open all evening. Dutch canopies are the fixed curved ones, cord and pulley or motorised. Mostly shopfronts. Most patios round Culcheth face west, so they get the sun from about four until it drops.