The Empty Deck and the Awning

December 12, 2013

Awning on patioThis elevated deck in southern Chester County was built to accommodate a crowd.  Measuring 32’ wide and 16’ deep it was perfect for the Homeowner and his large extended family.  The only problem was nobody would use the deck.  It was simply too hot.

The deep, dark color of the deck was rich and elegant, but absorbed the heat from the sun making the deck boards hot enough to fry an egg on.  The glass doors made access to the deck easy.  Unfortunately, the glass in the patio doors reflected and magnified the sunlight and the heat.  Temperatures at noon on a normal summer day could reach 120 degrees or more.  It was unbearable.

To make matters worse, the sun set straight ahead and as the day wore on the deck got even hotter.  Even after sunset, the deck boards would take hours to cool off.  The homeowner wanted to use his beautiful deck and contacted Milanese Remodeling for a solution to his sun problem.

Milanese Remodeling recommended the largest fully retractable awning available with the optional feature of a “Drop Valance” shading curtain at the railing.

This awning covers the entire deck at the touch of a button.  Another touch of a button lowers a motorized retractable solar screen shading wall curtain to block the sun at dinnertime.   That’s when the sun begins to set and get lower in the sky and would have poked under the awning and into the eyes of the family on the deck.   The Drop Valance is a solar screen that rolls and creates a shading curtain wall at the railing.  That curtain shades the low setting sunlight that would poke below the awning if there wasn’t a shade curtain.

The solar screen fabric curtain doesn’t interrupt the beautiful view or block air flow, but it does block out 85% of the harmful and hot sunlight.  The last thing this homeowner wanted was to invest a substantial amount of money into an awning that didn’t shade the deck during “Happy Hour” and dinnertime.  They are very glad they selected the solar screen drop valance shade curtain option on the awning that protects their deck.

By the way, two members of the third generation of the Milanese Family of Remodelers were part of the team that installed this giant awning.  Mark Milanese and Nicholas Milanese are featured in the photo after the successful completion of this project.

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