External venetians — heat stopped before it reaches the glass

Aluminium venetians mounted outside the glass, not inside it — the most effective solar control there is, because the heat never gets the chance to enter the room.

The physics, in plain terms

An interior blind is managing heat that's already inside your home. An external venetian stops most of it at the glass itself. On the wide north and west elevations common to Broadacres and Cedar Lakes estate homes, that difference is the reason a living room can go from unbearable at 3pm to genuinely comfortable — it's the same principle architects use on glass-heavy commercial buildings, scaled down to a house.

Built to live outside

• Wide aluminium slats, 60–90mm class, running in guided side rails or cables — tilt and raise, same as an interior venetian, just built for weather.
• Effectively always motorised, with a wind sensor for automatic retraction — an exposed exterior blind has to be able to protect itself when a highveld thunderstorm rolls in.
• Powder-coated, weather-engineered finishes in colours we can match to your frames or your estate's approved palette.

Where they make sense here

Estate homes with hard west or north-facing glass, new builds where the shading can be planned at design stage rather than bolted on later, and any owner who's said "the aircon just can't keep up with that wall of glass." Because they change the look of the facade, most estates want them signed off by the architectural or aesthetics committee first — we provide the spec sheets and finish samples to make that submission painless.

Being upfront about cost and scope

This is premium spend, positioned as a building improvement rather than window dressing. It needs proper fixing points into the facade and, ideally, is planned before render or finishes go on — though retrofits are possible on suitable elevations. We'll tell you honestly at the free measure if your walls are a good candidate.

What it costs

External venetians are engineered aluminium fixed to the outside of the building, so they carry a very different number to an interior blind. Per square metre installed, the guide is R3,000 to R4,500 hand-operated and R4,500 to R6,500 motorised. Almost every one we fit on these estates is motorised, because a wind sensor that raises the slats ahead of a highveld storm is the whole point of the product.

Slat width, the guide channels and what is actually behind the render all move a job inside that band, and a narrow opening still carries a minimum charge. Exterior work is never priced from a photograph: the facade, the fixings and the exposure are assessed at the free measure, and the written figure follows that visit.