When visiting outdoor theme parks, recreational areas, restaurants, and commercial buildings, you will often see installations of fabric stretched across an area and attached to posts or walls of buildings etc. These fabrications are what have come to be known as shade sails. They are used to provide shade over areas of seating, car park areas and children's play areas.
The sails are available in varying sizes. Manufacturers offer the product in retail stores in standard pre-manufactured sizes that are generally a lighter grade of product aimed at the home user. Along with the light grade product, better quality, commercial grade versions of the product are offered by stores specializing in their supply. You will also find that they offer the ability to order custom sizing and fabrics. There are two other important aspects to the shade sails, the posts or connection points and the hardware used to connect the shade to them.
Due to the physical dimensions of the sails, they are susceptible to strong forces exerted on them by wind. To provide for a product that can withstand these forces it is important that they are installed in a manner that ensures that they do not move in a wind. This is attained by applying tension on the sail across its' surface and also by a radius which is cut into the side of the sail, which ensures that no excess fabric is left to flap once the product has been tensioned. Depending on the size of the covering, support may be required along the edges in the form of steel cabling. Any sail requiring the cabling is going to be sufficiently large to warrant being designed, manufactured and installed by professional contractors.
When referring to the attachment hardware you are looking at the piece of hardware that connects the sail to the post or wall attachment. Use of a good quality, marine grade connector is important to ensure that it can withstand the stresses placed on it and for longevity and rust resistance. In most instances attachment to the sail is via a solid ring that is sewn in on the corners of the product. Ideally the distance between the connection point and the attachment point should be kept as short as possible. This will ensure that the least amount of movement is possible in wind.
For the attachment points you will want to use a minimum of a 4" diameter steel pole, the size used dependent on the dimensions of the shade fabric. When attaching to a wall or fascia you want to be sure that the attachment location is well reinforced, again, because of stress put on the sail by the tension and wind.
Fabrics most often used for the shade sails are a woven Polyethylene while some custom manufacturers are also offering the products in Sunbrella fabric. Many people look for a product that they say will be waterproof. Generally speaking the product is installed at a height that would allow rain to come in from the side of the installation. Irrespective of the fabric used for the product, when installed at certain angles they will still prevent the majority of water passing through the fabric. It is important when installing a fabric like Sunbrella that he angles are maintained to ensure that the water runs off the product and doesn't pool, resulting in damage or total destruction of the product.
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