Quality Is The Difference
Its often very difficult to compare shade sail quotes, as your not often comparing like for like. There needs to be consistency across all aspects of planning and manufacturing a shade sail in order to produce a quality product that will not only look good, but last the test of time. ONE Shade manufacture the shade sails to a very high quality using only tried and tested material and install methods.
Design
Quality shade sails start at the beginning with the design stage. Without a well thought out design that considers the shape of a sail to add strength to the overall structure you will never produce a quality shade structure, regardless of how well constructed the sail is. Fabric by its nature will stretch to some extent, so by adding shape to the sail you add strength and stability. A simplest and most common example of this is by having opposite high and low fixing points, this will allow the sail to take on the shape of a hyperparaboloid or HYPER shade as seen in the diagram below. ONE shade sails will also using the existing features of your home or business to add value and appeal to the area.
Fixings
The fixing points need to be engineered and specific to the area the sail is being installed. Posts need to be galvanised and have a suitable wall thickness to withstand the loading the sail will place on them. taller posts will need to be a heavier gauge steel. A common request we have and a common site with DIY sails is wooded posts, which are not suitable. All fixing points are 316 marine grade stainless steel and fixed in accordance with an engineers certificate. I common site and a ticking time bomb are wall fixings to a house, although this fixing method is available there are some rules, the most important being that there needs to be at least 1.4m of wall (double brick) above the fixing point. ONE Shade Sails has been called upon to assess buildings for insurance purposes where there has been a failure caused by shade sails, 100% of the time the failure has occurred because fixings have been chemically anchored 2 or 3 brick courses from the top.
Rigging
There are a couple of methods in terms of rigging a shade sail and applying the tension. Stainless steel turnbuckles and shackles or rope ties. Although we offer stainless steal as standard some client are on a budget and the easiest way to keep the costs down is by using rope ties. In some circumstances like extremely small sails rope ties are more appropriate.
Stitching
Stitching, the weakest link! its amazing that sails are still being made with thread that does not have the proper tie and UV stabilisation to withstand being exposed to the harsh Western Australian sun. Inferior thread will fail and fail as quickly as 1 year, ONE Shade Sail only uses PTFE thread that is UV stabilised and comes with a massive 10 year uv degradation warranty.
Installation
Installation is an unregulated area of the tensile fabric industry in Western Australia, meaning anyone can set themselves up as a shade sail installer. ONE Shade Sails has over 10 years experience installing tensile fabric structures, we have safe and robust process to ensure that our shade sail withstand the test of time.
Material
The final area is the shade sail fabric, our range of the material offer excellent UV properties and we’ve had long relationships with the companies and our condiment in there products. UV block is an un regulated area of the shade and tensile fabric industry, as members of the specialised textiles association ONE shade sails are involved in ensuring the process of creating a standard testing system. The scope of this project is to provide a revision of the test method and to include an ultraviolet protection factor rating and protection categories for shadecloth material used with UVR protective shade structures. The standard needs to be revised to include the diverse types of shade cloth material and their usage not just for the agricultural and horticultural industry but for occupational and personal use of shade material in shade structures.