Shade sails in stormsMost storms, the sail stays where it is.
What to do when a severe warning lands, what to leave alone while it blows, and what to look at once it is over.
If the wind is already up, leave the sail where it is and go inside. Nothing out there is worth standing under a storm for. The rest of this page is about the quiet hours either side, because a sail that is properly tensioned rides out the ordinary Sydney southerly. It comes down for a severe weather warning, and that job belongs on a still morning with someone who can reach the corners safely.
Choose the stage you are at
Rain and wind forecast
Ordinary weather is what the sail was tensioned for. Walk out, look at it, bring in the loose furniture and the umbrella, then carry on.
A severe warning is issued
Severe warnings come with hours of notice. Do the work while it is still calm and while somebody can safely reach each corner. Ring whoever installed it if that is not you.
Wind or lightning has arrived
Do not go out to tighten a fitting or rescue a corner. Whatever the wind is doing to the cloth, it will do worse to you.
The storm has passed
Once it is safe outside, walk around the sail and compare it with how you remember it. Keep people away from damage, hanging debris or a pocket holding water.
NSW SES storm advice is to shelter indoors away from windows and follow the official warnings. That comes first every time. The sail can wait until the weather has gone through.
Should this sail come down?
- The usual summer storm, wind and heavy rainLeave it up.
A tight sail is doing exactly what it was built to do. Slack cloth is what tears, because a loose panel snaps back and forth and drives the load into the corner fittings. If yours has gone soft over the years, sort that out on a calm day before the season.
- A severe weather warning, hail or destructive windsTake it down while the weather is still fine.
Give yourself hours. If the corners are high, or the fittings are holding real tension, that is a job for whoever installed it.
- You inherited the sail and have no paperworkGet it looked at on a quiet day.
A calm-day appointment is when you find out how it is attached, how it comes off, and whether the hardware has anything left in it. Working that out in a rising wind is how people get hurt.
Four places to check afterwards
- 1. Corner fittings: a connection hanging differently, a bent part, or a new gap between a bracket and its support.
- 2. Seams: an opening or a fresh loose thread. Look at the cloth either side of the stitching as well as the line itself.
- 3. Post bases: new lean, disturbed ground, cracking or movement. Compare it with an earlier photo, because plenty of posts are raked on purpose.
- 4. Low spots: trapped water, branches or a deeper pocket than you remember. A shallow pocket on knitted cloth can usually be pushed up from underneath with a broom handle. If the pocket is deep and heavy with water, stay out from under it and ring whoever installed it.
Photograph the whole sail and anything that has changed, using the camera zoom from a safe spot. A clear shot from ten metres back is worth more to us than a brave close-up. If cloth has torn but is still hanging on, leave it hanging until someone can take it down properly.
A wind rating belongs to the whole installation
A figure off a fabric datasheet tells you about the cloth. Your yard is a separate question. What the installation will take comes out of the site, the shape of the sail, the supports and the condition of every connection. Ours are engineered to NSW wind codes and we can produce the certification on request, which is the paperwork worth asking any installer for.
A sail above a rooftop carpark at Mascot sits in a very different wind from one tucked into a courtyard three streets back. The number has to come from your own site to mean anything at all.
Do shade sails have to come down over winter?+
No. Ours are made to live outside all year, and handling a sail is its own kind of wear, mostly at the corners and the eyelets. If you want the winter sun back on the house, that is a fair reason to drop it. Do it on a still day, with someone who can reach the corners, and store the cloth dry.
The sail came down in the storm. Can the same cloth go back up?+
Often, yes. If the fabric itself is sound and what gave way was a fitting or the point it was fixed to, the same sail goes back up on new hardware. What you do not want is it bolted straight back onto whatever let go the first time.
Will insurance cover storm damage to a shade sail?+
That is between you and your policy, and we will not guess at it. Photograph everything before anything gets moved or thrown out, because an insurer wants to see the damage as it happened.
If you want a second pair of eyes before the storm season
Once you have a price and want to go ahead, the measure, blueprint and quote are free. Seven days a week, Sydney and all of NSW.
