Don’t Pack Up Your Patio: How Screens and Shelters Extend Your Outdoor Season Into Fall

September on the Main Line is the month worth fighting for. Humidity breaks, the light turns gold by four in the afternoon, and the evenings land in that narrow band where sitting outside is the obvious thing to do.

It is also the month the patio furniture starts drifting toward the garage. But the outdoor season rarely ends because of the cold. It ends because of four specific irritations, and every one of them has a product answer.

What actually ends the season

Ask homeowners in Malvern, Berwyn or West Chester why the deck went quiet in mid-September and you hear the same four things.

Insects get worse before they get better. Wind that felt welcome in July cuts through dinner in October. The sun drops to an angle that puts glare straight in your eyes at the exact hour you want to sit down. And rain arrives with no warning and ends the evening early.

Four problems, four different answers. We have been sorting them out for homeowners across Chester County, Delaware County, and into New Castle County, Delaware since 1998, and the honest version is that no single product solves all four. Knowing which one you actually need is most of the job.

The Sentry: for insects, and for glare that comes in sideways

Overhead cover is a summer answer. By late September your problem is horizontal.

The Sentry is a Sunesta retractable screen built for that opening. It handles widths up to 18’ with a 12’ drop. Custom-sized to your porch or patio openings, it runs down tracks mounted on either side, operated by a motor with wireless remote control. It comes down when you want the space closed in and disappears when you don’t.

What it does depends on which screen fabric goes in it, and that choice is worth understanding before you buy:

• Insect screening keeps bugs out without costing you the view or the airflow. This is the option that buys back your September and October evenings.
• Solar mesh blocks sun and wind, with a temperature reduction of up to 15 degrees. On a west-facing patio at five o’clock in early fall, that is the difference between a space you use and a space you look at.

Frame colors run white, beige, clay, brown and bronze, and we carry more frame colors than any other manufacturer.

The Sunroll: for wider openings

The Sunroll is the other Sunesta retractable screen we carry, with widths up to 20 feet, drops up to 12 feet, and available motorized or with a manual gear.

For fall specifically, ask about the drop bar and cable version. The stainless steel cable system mounts to a wall or the floor and holds the powder-coated drop bar steady in breezy conditions, so the screen stays put on the kind of gusty October evening that makes a loose screen useless. The SmartCase model adds full fabric protection when the screen is rolled up.

Four mounting configurations are available — surface, inside, distance and recessed — which matters on older Main Line homes where the porch opening was never squared up for a modern product.

Both models take an optional aluminum hood to shield the fabric, and Smart Power and Smart Control add automated and wireless operation.

Horizontal Shades: For privacy and protection from low sun and light wind

Most shade products deal with sun coming from above. Morning and evening sun is just as harsh, and in fall it is the bigger nuisance.

Horizontal Shades, which we carry as an authorized Aristocrat dealer, pull out sideways rather than coming down from overhead. The shade comes out of a side cassette and hooks onto a wall or a floor-mounted post, creating a vertical wall of shade where the glare actually is. They also work as a light wind screen by blocking the breeze, and they add privacy without a permanent barrier.

Heights run from 46 to 96 inches, and projection reaches up to 13 feet depending on fabric thickness. Solar shade fabrics come in a range of openness factors, which is the number that decides how much light and view you keep — a higher openness factor lets in more daylight, a lower one gives you more privacy and shade.

An easy-pull system with a roller wheel glides the shade across the ground, and a safety brake stops it rolling up if it is released by accident.

The Sunplus: For shade and rain protection

The second half of a real fall setup is overhead, and specifically, overhead cover that handles precipitation rather than just filtering light.

The Sunplus is a Sunesta retractable shelter with rain gutters, and the gutter is the entire idea. It channels rain run-off away from the space, adds mounting strength, and contributes to sun protection. A shower stops being the thing that ends the evening.

Wireless smart control comes standard, with sun and wind sensors, so the shelter responds to conditions instead of waiting for someone to notice. A single unit reaches up to 18’ wide with 23‘ of projection, and multiple units join together, so the coverage is limited by your space rather than by the product. Available fabrics include stripes and solids across a large custom collection of over 130 different options, with white and brown frames chosen as the most neutral match to a house.

It installs as a standalone structure or can be mounted atop an existing structure — a pergola, a sunroom, a skylight.

Shade Options for the structure you already have

Plenty of Main Line homes already have a pergola that looks excellent and does very little about weather.

The Aristocrat Under-Pergola Canopy is a trolley system custom-designed to attach directly to the rafters of your existing pergola. Nothing gets torn out and nothing gets rebuilt. The structure stays; the canopy adds the shade and shelter it never had. The canopies are easily operated manually, but are available motorized.

If you don’t already have a pergola, Aristocrat Retractable Canopies are pergolas that can be installed freestanding anywhere in your outdoor areas or wall-mounted to a house, pool house or other outdoor structure, with the same under-pergola canopy built in. Canopy fabric comes as a single acrylic layer, or as a double option with a water-resistant vinyl layer on top and acrylic underneath. The added cover blocks up to 94% of UV rays. Mounted over windows and doors, a canopy also cuts heat gain, which lowers cooling costs in the earlier summer months.

For a pergola, a veranda, a terrace or a roof garden that already exists and simply needs covering, retractable canopies are usually the shortest route to a space you can use in the fall.

Porch Enclosure Systems: for the space you want to use longest

If your goal is the space that stays usable furthest into the fall, the answer is an enclosure rather than a screen.

Porch Enclosure Systems by SummerSpace use extruded aluminum frames with two-piece powder-coated trim kits, and the window panes lift out. That is the part that matters seasonally: the same porch can be closed in cool weather and open when the weather is good, without rebuilding anything.

The panels are built with a durable mesh screen for insect control. Window panes use 4mm i89 Low-E tempered safety glass, which stays clear and lets light through. Optional top vent sliders let you control ventilation without opening a whole panel. Panel depth is two and a half inches, so the frame reads slim against the house rather than heavy.

SummerSpace Porch Enclosures use FlexScreen — scratch-resistant, weatherproof, and quick to clean, with an unobstructed view. Fifteen textured frame colors are available, from white and almond through bronze, graystone and forest green.

The product that best fits your needs

Sometimes it’s more than one! 

A strategically chosen combination of options is what can help turn a summer patio into a space that keeps you comfortable in most weather. Our expert tip: think about what you need in October, not just June. That way you’re investing in a solution that covers you most of the year. 

Before the first snow

One thing to think about in September rather than December: retractable products need a cold-weather plan, and it is not the same plan for every product in the line. Snow and ice are unforgiving to fabric — heavy enough to tear it, or to load a frame past what it was built to carry.

Our service and maintenance team handles seasonal work along with cleaning and repairs. Call (610) 889-3104 and ask what your specific product needs before the first hard freeze, rather than after. The answer differs between a stationary awning, a motorized screen and a retractable shelter, and it is worth asking about the one you own.

See it before you commit

Screens, shades and enclosures are hard to judge from a photograph. Frame color against your siding, how much light a solar mesh actually cuts, how 23 feet of projection reads over a real patio — that is a showroom conversation. Stop by 446 Lancaster Avenue, Frazer, PA 19355, on Route 30, or call (610) 889-3104 to talk through your space.

When you want numbers for your own opening, Get Quote.