The outdoor room, on demand
Shade when you want it, sun when you don't
A folding-arm awning is a fabric canopy on spring-tensioned arms that extends off the wall and folds back into a cassette when retracted — no posts standing in the middle of the braai area, no permanent roof blocking welcome winter sun. It turns a west-facing Waverley patio, like the one above, back into a usable room through summer, and tucks away again once the weather turns.
Fabric is solution-dyed acrylic, built to hold its colour under South African UV, with a projection up to around 3–4m over wide spans. Mounting comes as full cassette (fabric and arms sealed away — the better choice if the position gets weather-exposed), semi-cassette, or open. Control is crank handle or motorised — and if you're motorising it, add a wind sensor. It's the responsible spec: an awning caught open in a Highveld thunderstorm gust can be destroyed, and auto-retract protects the investment before you even know a storm's rolled in. See motorised blinds & automation for how the sensor side works.
What a folding-arm awning costs here
Awnings are guided by the square metre of projection, installed — the shade the arms actually throw, not the width of the wall. Crank-operated, that guide is R3,500 to R5,500, an open or semi-cassette mounting at the cheaper end and a full cassette, sealing fabric and arms away from the weather, at the dearer. Add a motor and a wind sensor and the guide becomes R5,500 to R7,500.
A compact awning attracts a minimum, because the fixing brackets, the arms and the crew hardly change whether the projection is two metres or four. Substrate can move the figure too, since a steel or timber fascia may want a bracket detail plain brick does not. All of it is measured, decided and priced in writing before you commit, at no cost.