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The Broadacres & Cedar Lakes Shading Casebook — how the sun crosses this suburb, what it does to each elevation of a cluster or estate home, and what we'd fit on each.
Broadacres is small: about 1.41 square kilometres holding 2,598 people at the last census, roughly 1,840 to the square kilometre. Stand in a lounge here and what's outside the window is usually a boundary wall, a neighbouring roof or somebody's upstairs bedroom — close.
The housing follows that logic: over a thousand freehold homes, nearly all in gated communities, and roughly as many sectional-title units. Cedar Lakes sits alongside the Broadacres Lifestyle Centre on Cedar Road; Broadacres Country Estate, Stratford Gardens, Windsong and Cedarwood fill much of the rest. The suburb still calls itself country, between the Dainfern estates and the Chartwell smallholdings — but it is built at cluster density, behind walls.
So the brief has two halves pulling against each other. The glass is generous, because these plans were built around a stacking door onto a small garden. And almost nothing you fit outside that glass is yours alone to decide.
Broadacres sits at 25°59′ south. At solar noon on the December solstice the sun stands about 87° above the horizon — near enough straight up. In June it manages about 41°, due north. That 47-degree swing is the whole of Highveld shading in one number: an eave that keeps a north room cool in January does nothing for it in July, and nothing for a west window at all.
Bearings matter as much as height. In December the sun rises at 116° and sets at 243°, both south of the east–west line, 13 hours 47 minutes apart; in June it sets at 295°, well north of west. So west glass takes the setting sun from a new angle every month, and it is always low by then — under the eave, straight at the pane, at about the hour people get home.
Hot and cold at the same address. January averages a maximum near 30 °C, July a minimum near 8 °C. Five months shedding heat, three holding it — which is why we usually specify two fabrics in one house rather than one compromise everywhere.
The storms arrive at the worst possible hour. The Highveld runs intense afternoon and evening thunderstorms from October to March, throwing gust fronts and microbursts with little warning. Satellite work on South African hail puts hail-producing storms at their peak between 16:00 and 17:00, the season peaking over Gauteng in early November — the same hour a west lounge most wants its shade out. Hence retractable, not fixed.
Altitude sharpens the light. Fourways next door sits at about 1,461 m, ultraviolet climbs roughly 10% per 1,000 m, and Highveld high pressure hands you cloudless skies to deliver it. Ultraviolet attacks dye and yarn alike, so fabric choice here is a durability decision — outdoor shade fabric is a wearing part, not a permanent fitting.
Note which way each room's glass faces. The verdicts are ours; the reasoning is here to argue with.
The sun sets between 243° in December and 295° in June, low enough by then to arrive under the eave and straight at the glass. Here that window usually faces a boundary wall a few metres off — no tree, no distance, no shadow.
Our view: the one elevation where stopping the sun outside the glass genuinely beats anything inside it.
87° in December against 41° in June: the only elevation where a horizontal projection blocks most of midsummer and still lets the whole of midwinter in. If a north room is uncomfortable, the shortfall is overhead, not at the glass.
Our view: fix the overhang and the blind becomes a light-and-privacy decision, not a heat one.
The mirror of west, from just after five in midsummer. The house is still cool then, so nobody complains about temperature — they complain about being woken, and about the strip of light down the side of the blind.
Our view: darkness beats thermal performance here, and the edges matter more than the middle.
Midsummer sunrise (116°) and sunset (243°) both sit south of the east–west line, so a south wall takes a little low sun in December and none from April to August. It is also the elevation most likely to face a neighbour's wall.
Our view: the enemy is heat loss and dimness — a heavy blockout would only make a dark room darker.
Tell us which rooms give you trouble and we'll email this casebook back with your elevations noted on it. No visit, no phone call.
Tap “add to my window schedule” and it waits, ticked, on the form below.
West living glass
Aluminium blades in guide rails outside the glass, tilted through the afternoon and lifted clear when you want the view back. On a bad west elevation it beats an interior blockout for a plain physical reason: stop the sun before it reaches the pane and the room stays cooler than if you absorb it inside, where the glass radiates behind the blind.
Open-plan living glass
One smooth flat sheet of open-weave fabric on a tube — no folds, no slats. It knocks down glare and much of the heat while you keep the daylight and the garden. On a stacking door we put it ahead of a blockout, which would turn your best room into a cupboard from four o'clock.
East bedrooms · media rooms
The same smooth sheet, in a fabric that stops light instead of filtering it. On an east bedroom taking a five-o'clock sunrise it is the honest answer — sunscreen and zebra blinds both leave a bright room at dawn. Side channels close the edges, which is where most so-called blockouts fail, as the photograph shows.
The walled braai patio
A fabric canopy on folding arms out of a wall cassette, nothing standing on the paving — which matters when the patio is four metres deep. We put it ahead of a fixed roof for one reason: hail peaks mid-afternoon and the Gauteng season peaks in early November, so an awning comes in before the weather while a fixed roof takes the hit.
Rooms that bake · rooms that never warm
Hexagonal cells trap still air against the glass, so it works both ways: it takes the edge off an upstairs bedroom in January and holds warmth in on a July morning at 8 °C. Where the complaint is temperature rather than glare — a south room, a west bedroom you cannot shade outside — we reach for this first.
Zebra blinds facing a neighbouring unit; venetians for slat-by-slat control; vertical or panel blinds on very wide sliders; concealed blinds on a new build; motorisation to take every cord off the façade.
Roughly half of Broadacres is freehold in a gated community, half sectional title. Both end at somebody else's written consent for anything outside the glass — different rulebooks, same destination.
In a sectional-title complex, the prescribed conduct rules under the Sectional Titles Schemes Management Act are the starting point. Rule 5(1): no change to the external appearance of your section without the trustees' written consent, unless it is minor and doesn't detract from the section or the common property. Rule 4(1): no screws or nails into common-property structure without that same consent. An awning cassette is usually both at once.
In an HOA estate, the estate's own rules apply. Cedar Lakes is a useful example because its rules are published. Rule 16.1.2 says plainly that an architectural committee inspects and approves all plans submitted; 16.3.1 makes owners maintain the exterior to the association's satisfaction. Two more bite on motorised shading: 16.3.4 wants power cables built into walls or concealed in ducts on new work, and 16.3.5 says that where that's impractical on an existing wall they go into PVC trunking of the smallest practical size, run vertically and horizontally, painted the colour of the wall. Repainting needs prior colour approval (16.3.6), and the fee schedule has its own line for scrutinising ancillary installations.
None of that is an obstacle if you plan for it — only if you meet it after fabrication. So: choose colours with the submission in mind, and settle the cable route before anybody drills. Cedar Lakes keeps a separate architectural rules file that isn't public, and Dainfern's rules aren't published either — so we won't guess at them.
Each changes the specification, and each needs somebody in the room.
Whether a blind fits inside the opening — and whether a double roller, side channel or cassette fits with it — comes down to millimetres behind the plaster line. Cluster-home reveals are often just short, and that changes the product, not the price.
An awning or external venetian pulls hard on its fixings. Whether that lintel, bulkhead or face-brick skin will carry it — and, in a complex, whether the wall is yours to drill — is a look-and-tap job.
Highveld storms throw gust fronts and microbursts with almost no warning, and two identical patios in one complex behave differently depending on how the walls funnel wind between them. That decides between an awning with a wind sensor and external venetians instead.
Battery motors retrofit cleanly; wired motors suit work with an electrician on site. Which you want depends on the nearest point, whether the route can be chased or must be trunked to estate specification, and how many blinds share one control.
The sun-path figures above are the same suburb-wide. What they mean for your lounge depends on the neighbour's roofline, the boundary wall height, and whether that window looks at open ground or a garage.
Both start on the same short form below. Neither commits you.
Recommended
A consultant comes to you with fabric samples, walks the elevations at the hour that matters, measures every opening, checks reveals, fixings and cable routes, and leaves a written quote itemised window by window. Free, no obligation.
Book my free measureOur consultant does five to six measures a week across this belt, so the diary fills early — book ahead if you need a particular day.
Optional
Pop in rough sizes and we'll send a budget range by the next working day. Not sure how to measure? Leave it — our consultant measures for free either way, and that visit is where exact per-window pricing comes from.
A range is not a quote — nothing is ordered off it.
Open the window scheduleOne short form. If you'd also like a budget range, add rough sizes underneath — entirely optional, and nobody chases you for it.
Where a figure was disputed, or the source wouldn't open, we left it out.