Types of Awnings Available in Kenya

This is the basic and most frequent kind of retractable awning available and requires your direct involvement to function. Basically, all manual retractable awnings have some type of cranking mechanism — whether vertically or horizontally oriented — which requires you to crank it in order for the awning to both extend and retract.

The downside to this type of mechanism should be obvious: annoyance. Aside from the fact that you need to devote the time and energy physically extending and retracting the canopy, the crank itself may be tricky to manage for users who aren’t quite as powerful as others — especially for elderly clients. On the plus side, a manual retractable awning is much less prone to mechanical failure than the electric type and are significantly easier to fix should something fail.

The electric retractable awning is a thing of convenience. Rather than having to crank the mechanism to extend or retract the canopy of your awning, you just press a button and an electric motor is going to do all the work for you. In actuality, this can actually offer additional advantages that may even increase the lifespan of your retractable awning in the first place.

Specifically, some of the higher-end models of electrical retractable awnings come equipped with storm detectors. These sensors are able to find out the strength of the end in addition to the saturation of the canopy when a storm is blowing in and will retract the canopy automatically. This is especially helpful if you happen to forget to retract the canopy or is a sudden flash thunderstorm appears out of nowhere.

The principal downside of the electric retractable canopy is that more moving parts mean more possibilities for a mechanical failure. While this is bad enough on its own, the matter is further compounded by the fact that electrical retractable awnings are far more costly to repair than manual ones and are usually only cheaper to simply replace altogether.