Top 7 Problems With DIY Shade Sail Projects

A pole-supported shade sail is essentially a small construction project. Holes must be measured and dug, posts must be obtained and concreted. Multiple site visits are also needed to ensure accurate measurements throughout the project. All of this work can be costly if you use a third-party installer. There are a few points to consider if you are measuring and installing yourself.

1. DIY Mistakes to Avoid: Before purchasing a shade sail, first measure the shade area and identify any possible attachment points. We get many calls from customers who have purchased a DIY shade sail, coming home only to find it doesn’t match the available fixing points!
2. Properly tensioned sails have curved or concave edges and the depth of the curve is approximately 10% from the outside of the sail. Remember that measuring this curvature and using bindings means the sail covers a smaller area.
3. Candles on a level plane can hold water. Consider the slope of the material to shed water. The most common solution is to have opposite corners at significantly different heights.
4. If not tensioned and twisted, the sails can become unstable in the wind. It must be tensioned correctly so that it has a certain curvature and twists into a hypar shape.
5. Avoid poor quality woven tarps that can hang limp and absorb water.
6. Sails made with a single line or poor chain stitch, as this can come undone when under tension or stress. Too many seams in the sail can break under stress.
7. Corner rings that are not made of galvanized steel can rust and discolor surrounding material.

Once the overall dimensions are finalized, the cost of the sail fabric area and the number of fixtures needed to tension the sail can be calculated.