How to Mount a Balcony Awning (2025) | Hacker News Reader

How to Mount a Balcony Awning (2025)

solar.lowtechmagazine.com

64 pointskarakoram9 comments

A quick tip: with more than (3) anchor points, make your anchor positions non-planar. This imparts a constant curvature and thus constant tension on the membrane and goes a long way to stabilize its position in moderate to heavy winds. Or less flapping.

I have always wondered why awnings and similar covers aren't used more to shade buildings and keep them cool. It seems like the investment should pay itself off in reduced energy expenditures relatively rapidly.

Small ones like this may be fine, but buildings (especially old ones) may have surprisingly small margin for extra wind load laterally. What seems like a cheap option could require an expensive structural analysis, or an even more expensive later repair.

Awnings used to be everywhere on brick buildings with no wind load problem. You can still see where awnings were meant to go on many old (early twentieth century) buildings. Air conditioning, not wind load, killed the awning. https://thecraftsmanblog.com/why-dont-we-use-awnings-anymore...

Do awnings have vents to avoid forces exerted by wind, like billboards?

FWIW I have seen wind damage to a brick building, but with a shade sail, which while having a similar purpose is typically larger than a typical awning (although an awning on every window might approach the same load).

Technology Connections on Awnings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhbDfi7Ee7k

Balcon awnings Russian style (the land of no enforcement of building permits on small things) - full glass enclosures

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQqEY5M...

some get very creative https://kvartira.mirtesen.ru/blog/43698892000/15-sumasshedsh... , https://masterok.livejournal.com/7601098.html?

I used rope and suction cups to mount a shade cloth (neatly) over my apartment balcony. I quite liked it, it made the balcony more cozy, gave a bit more privacy, my apartment was cooler, my plants were less stressed.

The building manager made me take it down...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com