Blinds & awnings for Fresnaye

North-facing glass is the local twist

Fresnaye wraps around Lion's Head rather than facing the ocean square-on, so a good number of its houses look north or north-west over Table Bay and Robben Island instead of due west. That changes the sun-control brief: north-facing glass in the southern hemisphere carries more sun in winter, when the sun sits lower and reaches further into a room, and less in summer, when a high midday sun is easier to manage. It's a different calculation from Clifton's west-facing glare problem, and we spec it differently, often starting with external venetian blinds whose slats tilt to cut a low winter sun without shutting the bay out of the room.

Sheltered by the mountain, not by luck

Lion's Head blocks a meaningful share of the south-easter here, which is part of why Fresnaye is generally regarded as one of the more wind-protected pockets of the Atlantic Seaboard. That doesn't remove the case for a wind-rated exterior product — the wraparound slope means aspect and exposure vary from one house to the next, and we check the specific position at the measure rather than assuming the whole suburb behaves the same way.

Built into an almost-vertical site

Streets here climb Lion's Head on a genuine gradient, with driveways cut into the slope and very little level ground anywhere in the suburb. Access for a measure or an install is rarely a flat walk-in, and the engineering-heavy modern houses built directly into the mountainside often carry multi-level glazing that needs motorised operation simply because a hand-held control can't reach it comfortably.