The pole is steel tubing. We generally recommend a minimum of 4" diameter for the steel posts and a schedule 40 thickness. You can get galvanized or raw steel.

It is! The Agua Hedionda Lagoon Foundation is in Carlsbad, CA, part of North County San Diego.

Hi! We source the steel locally from metal or fence suppliers, then we have them powdercoated.

The 400-acre Agua Hedionda Lagoon is one of the threatened coastal wetlands on the Southern California coastline. Draining 135,000 acres in the heart of the burgeoning metropolitan area of San Diego's north county, the Lagoon watershed is a sensitive and vital ecosystem. It is home to juvenile fish, crabs, hundreds of species of marine life and waterfowl, including an array of threatened and endangered species. It also provides a much needed respite for migrating birds. The Lagoon is unique in that it has many current uses such as a YMCA day camp, recreational boating, a mussel and abalone aquaculture facility, a white-sea bass breeding and research center and a power generating facility. The Lagoon's various usages, and the many activities and ecosystems it supports, makes it a distinctive and precious natural resource unlike any other. www.aguahedionda.org/lagoon

Good morning miss understood! You may have noticed in the video that these shade sails are very large and for a commercial application. Larger projects require bigger posts, but the average residential project is perfectly fine with a 4"x4" steel post! No need for the larger 8" posts unless you're going for a large industrial look in your back yard! Of course, shade sails may not be right for everybody. Pergolas, Umbrellas, or Awnings can be great shade options too! Plenty of customers have a lot of success with cheaper shade sails from Costco or Amazon and since those sails don't come with stainless steel cable and hardware, you can usually get away with using wooden posts for those kinds of sails.

Hello! Yes! It depends on where you are in Ohio. I know there are custom shade sail installers in Cincinnati, Xenia, and Cleveland. But I'm sure a Google search will bring up some good options for you!

Hi @doge8676, sorry we didn't see your comment earlier, for some reason it was flagged for review. The shortest size we carry is an 8mm, which is 7.7 in long when fully closed and 11.4 inches long when fully open. We don't generally recommend this size though. The 10mm size is the most commonly used for shade sail projects.

We are not engineers, but the general recommendation is to go with a minimum 4" diameter steel post with schedule 40 thickness. If your posts are taller than 11' out of the ground, we recommend a 6" diamter post. The general rule of thumb for footer depth is that about 1/3 of the post should be buried in a concrete footer that is 2' wide. So a 10' tall out of the ground post is 15' in length with 5' buried in the footer. This is a general recommendation because it will depend on your soil and other factors.

In addition to the diameter of the post, you also need to consider the posts' wall thickness. We usually recommend schedule 40, which is about a 1/4" thick. How thick is the wall of the aluminum post? A 10' x 10' triangle shade sail isn't very big. You may be able to get away with using an aluminum post instead of steel, but can you find an aluminum post that is thick enough and has a big enough diameter? Are you using steel cable to tension your shade sail, or is it a small sail with a webbing edge?

We're happy that your wooden posts are working out for you. There are many different factors that come into play when deciding what kind of post is right for your situation. A wooden post may work just fine if your sail isn't too big, isn't under strong tension via stainless steel cable and hardware, or you live in a dry area. The sails in this video are very large and use stainless steel cable around the perimeter of each sail (as do all of our custom shade sails) to properly tension the sails. They are also right next to a lagoon and see a lot of moisture in the air. Shade sails like ours pull 200 lbs of pressure at each corner when the sail is at rest. In a storm, this can reach 2,000 lbs of pressure. So, given the application, steel is the best choice here.

We're glad you liked it!

Thanks for your question! We are not familiar with your project site and we are not engineers, if you have any concerns you should reach out to a local engineer or contractor. There are a lot of factors to consider when installing your shade sails. How big are the sails you are installing? Will you be using cable tensioned sails and corner hardware like turnbuckles or are you using rope? Will your sails be fully tensioned (very tight, no sag) or do you plan to have some drop in your sail? How thick and how tall is your redwood fence post? A fully tensioned sail using a cable perimeter and turnbuckles can pull 200 lbs of pressure at rest and up to 2,000 lbs or more in a storm. Between the two options you have suggested, the redwood fence is probably better, but this all depends on the thickness of the post, the height of the posy, and the size and number of sails. We wish you the best of luck with your project! Feel free to give us a call if you'd like to discuss this further, 760-818-3291.

Hi Joey, we sell corner brackets and wall plates to be used with our custom shade sails. You may also be able to find them at a local hardware store, the trick is finding one with the closed welded eye or loop.