Three bands of one valley

Band one: the widest sky

The properties highest up the valley have the view everyone comes for, and they pay for it in two currencies.

The first is duration. With no ridge, roofline or headland between the glass and the horizon, these houses hold the sun for the whole of its descent. In midsummer that descent takes hours, because the Cape sun does not drop out of the sky at this latitude, it slides sideways into the sea — and everything it passes on the way is west-facing glazing.

The second is exposure. A house on the upper slope catches wind that has crossed the ridge and spills down into the bowl, and it catches winter fronts head on. Whatever you hang outside up here has to be specified for that, not decorated for it.

Which is why, on band one, we lead with shading fitted outside the glass rather than inside it. The reason is physics rather than salesmanship. A blind on the room side of the window only meets sunlight after the pane has already let it in; the fabric warms up and hands that heat straight to the air around it. A slat or a screen carried outside the glazing intercepts the same energy in open air, where it convects away and never becomes your problem.

• External venetian blinds — the strongest answer for a wide west elevation. Tilt through the afternoon and the heat goes while the horizon stays visible between the slats.
• Roller shutters — full external closure when a room genuinely needs shutting down. A sun and glare product here; nothing on this page is a security claim.
• Zip screens — mesh locked into side channels so it stays flat instead of thrashing. The right choice for an exposed deck edge, and the only outdoor fabric worth considering in this position.

The glare that arrives from below

This is the single most useful thing in this guide, and it applies to all three bands.

Water is a mirror, but only at the right angle. When the sun is high, the sea absorbs most of what hits it and throws back very little. As the sun drops towards the horizon and the light strikes the surface at an increasingly glancing angle, the proportion the water reflects climbs steeply. By the last part of the afternoon a large share of the light coming through your window is not coming from the sun at all — it is coming off the sea.

Direct sun comes in over the top of the window. Reflected sun comes in under it.

That distinction matters because of how blinds are hung. A blind lowered from the head of the window blocks the sky first and the sea last. Half-drop it against the afternoon and you have cut exactly the half of the light that was bothering you least, while the bright path off the water carries on straight into your eyes at sitting height.

Three ways to deal with it, depending on the room:

1. Take the drop lower than instinct suggests. On a sea-facing lounge the useful position for a sunscreen is often two-thirds down, not one-third. You keep the middle band of view and lose the mirror.
2. Use a bottom-up system where privacy and glare both matter — the fabric rises from the sill, covering the reflected path while the sky and the horizon stay open above it.
3. Tilt instead of drop. Slats angled downwards reject the low upward-bouncing light while leaving the room bright, which no roller fabric can do at any height.

Two winds, two seasons

Llandudno gets hit from opposite directions at opposite times of year, and confusing the two leads to the wrong hardware.

Summer, from behind

From roughly October to March the south-easter runs across the Peninsula. In a bowl like this it arrives over the high ground and spills downward in gusts rather than a steady stream, which is harder on an awning than a constant blow — a folding arm can ride a steady wind and be torn by an unpredictable one. Anything retractable up here should have a wind sensor that pulls it in on its own, on the assumption that nobody is home.

Winter, from the front

Cape Town's rain arrives on cold fronts out of the north-west, off open ocean, and it hits the seaward face of the house with salt in it. This is a fabric and sealing question rather than a wind-rating one: it is why a west-facing external installation needs its coating intact and its channels drainable, and why the winter storm is what tests an installation rather than the summer gale.

What to have ready before a measure

None of this needs a specialist, and all of it makes the visit quicker and the quote more accurate.

1. Which band you are in. Roughly how far above the beach, and whether anything stands between your worst window and the water.
2. The hour that actually hurts. Note the clock time the room becomes unusable, once in February and once in July. Two readings beat any amount of description.
3. Whether it is glare, heat or privacy. They have different answers and people routinely buy for one while suffering from another.
4. What is already outside. An overhang, a pergola, a soffit — anything projecting changes what needs to be added at the glass.
5. Reach. Any opening above about 2.4 metres will not be operated by hand more than twice. Flag those and we will price motorisation properly instead of pretending otherwise.

We measure every opening on site, bring physical samples rather than a screen, and put a written per-window price in front of you before anything is ordered. If the answer for a particular window is "you do not need us for that", we would rather say so at the measure.