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A Guide to Retractable Awnings for Commercial Use
Retractable awnings are a wise investment if you want to improve the exterior of your business. The right awning installation can improve customer comfort, expand usable outdoor area and improve kerb appeal whether you run a coffee shop, office building or a retail business. However, it can be challenging to pick the best style for your business needs, because of mechanism variations available.
In this guide, our team at Commercial Awnings break down the three main types of retractable fabric awnings used in commercial applications.
1. Drop Arm Awning or the traditional Victorian style awning principal
2. Retractable self supporting folding arm Awning
3. Dutch style Canopy
Each of these options comes with its own size limitations, aesthetic characteristics, and levels of sun and rain protection. Read on to discover which awning best suits your business’s functional needs and architectural style.
1. What are the main objectives for an awning?
There are usually 2 or 3 main reasons for wanting a fabric awning over the front of a shop, cafe, pub, office, restaurant, etc. Firstly, an awning can provide shade from the heat and light of the sun for the staff and customers INSIDE the premises, rather than using a blind which potentially blocks out the view and feels a little too enclosed. Larger areas of glass are being used in retail and this needs proper sun shading in the hotter months of the year.
A second reason would be to promote the business to the outside world with what would effectively be a large projecting advertising sign outside your business. Place your business logo and some branding wording onto the fabric and you have an extendable advertising board. which can be put away when you are closed for the evening. it also provides shade of course.
2. Which system should you have?
The various awning systems each have their unique features and varying performance, but they all offer sun protection as their basic function. When it comes to rain or wind then more thought has to be given to the limitations and expectations. Therefore, let’s read more about each type of awnings pros and cons.
Drop Arm Awning
PROS: The drop arm fabric awning is a very simple system indeed. A cassette situated at the top holds the fabric for the canopy inside and will roll in and out as necessary. A front carry bar pulls the fabric in and out with one arm either side holding the front bar and lowering and lifting as necessary. The majority of drop arm awnings you see will have the side arms extending down to 90 degree angle to the building and thus providing the fabric cover at a 45 degree angle. This steep angle is ideal for rainwater dispersal and the fabric angle means any logos or wording is projected to the outside for all to see. Drop arm awnings have several key fixing points and the stresses are spread out very well. The awnings are also usually quite light and therefore do not cause too many issues with installation.
CONS: What has to be considered is the height of the side arms if the awning is over a public footpath or similar, head height for passing pedestrians has to be considered and this of course alters the height of the top cassette section.
Dutch Canopies
PROS: The ‘Dutch’ canopy is a very simple system of fabric or PVC type material lowering down from a lightweight steel or aluminium framework to form a canopy cover with sides as well as the front cover. It is simply a concertina type arrangement. The projection for this style of awning is quite limited because of the design so it is more often used for promotion and dressing the outside of a retail premises with some limited sun shading for the windows. These systems can be manually or electrically operated for convenience and ease of management when there are a lot of awnings on a shop or building.
CONS: The maximum projection from the building is very limited with these systems to about 1m. The steep angle of the fabric cover ensures rainwater dispersal so these can be used to protect from the rain but like any fabric system in high winds would need to be monitored carefully.
Retractable Folding Arm Awnings
PROS: The ‘knuckle arm’ retractable awning as it is often called is one of the most common commercial awnings now being used because of its greater flexibility in sizing, with projections possible up to 4m and widths up to a massive 14m wide!! The beauty of this awning is there are no dropping side arms to worry about and only the cassette or open roll for the fabric has to be fixed to the building at whatever height you require. The pitch of the fabric is adjustable for optimum performance and of course everything is neatly tucked away when the system is closed.
All retractable awnings are manually or electrically operated and because of the nature of a self supporting fabric cover and the potential of the cover to rock and pitch around in higher winds, most electric awnings are fitted with a motion sensor to enable the automatic retraction when the wind speed or cover motion is too much. This is a great safety feature to protect the system.
