How to Install a Shade Sail | Ask This Old House

In this video, This Old House carpenter Nathan Gilbert helps a homeowner create a cool, shady corner where she can watch her kids play in the pool.

When a homeowner tired of her backyard being too sunny to enjoy, she reached out to the team at Ask This Old House for help. Carpenter Nathan Gilbert knew just what to do, providing a simple, flexible solution that provides the homeowner with a nice, shady space for the homeowner to hang out and stay cool.

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From the makers of This Old House, America’s first and most trusted home improvement show, Ask This Old House answers the steady stream of home improvement questions asked by viewers across the United States. Covering topics from landscaping to electrical to HVAC and plumbing to painting and more. Ask This Old House features the experts from This Old House, including general contractor Tom Silva, plumbing and heating expert Richard Trethewey, landscape contractor Jenn Nawada, master carpenter Norm Abram, and host Kevin O’Connor. ASK This Old House helps you protect and preserve your greatest investment—your home.

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How to Install a Shade Sail | Ask This Old House

[billmansfield]

This sail-shade idea is perfect for what I need. Thanks

[catdogcarrie]

Love the lady homeowner's skill and desire to help out! She rocks!

[horatioswrld]

This makes me feel better about my own sail project.

[StuffTested]

This is awesome! A lot of the other people are hating on it, but something that's movable is great. This spot could be chosen based off of the time of day they go in the pool, or just the best view of the property so you don't see the weird quirks of their house. My parents would love something like this in their pool and could work for summer parties.

[KayRhodes-gh]

We followed the vid and successfully put a sail on our patio. Love it. Glad we used rock as filler, we can move it easier than a concrete filled barel.

[randyr]

I was looking for poles for hanging a sunshade and I seen this with the wine barrels a answer to my prayers thank you.

[louisezwileneff]

My husband is going through cancer treatments and can't be in the sun, so he can't use our pool. This will help me give him a way to enjoy what we worked so hard for!

[RyanRusich]

How come those 4x4s are so square? Amazing!!! 😂

[paristo]

How about lowering the third anchor toward sub, to increase the shade area?
It was as well oddly small sail size....

[tacojohnhg]

She should had 2 holes on each post below the eye bolt so it can be adjusted down on the sun side. It will offer a lot more shade that way.

[mrtony]

Did exactly this. Something to keep in mind is the 4x4s will warp after a year. Next time I'm just going to do a pergola so there's support brackets helping keep the beams square as opposed to always being pulled in the direction of the shade sail.

[teaglet]

how about high winds? we have that problem, so we have held off on our south facing deck

[paulh]

What a great project. I thought it was very innovative.

[glencarolo]

Nice simple project. Using a mess shade will help mitigate the wind issues and still provide enough shade.

[KillSwitch]

Followed this video and it came out perfect

[the_beefy]

The sail is comically small compared to the pool area

[byohzzrd]

Having personally witnessed a stiff breeze tear down a tennis courts worth of 12' steel fencing sink in concrete with sun shades rigidly attached, this is gonna end up in the pool.

[Guardducks]

Very unstable. The first high wind will have that whole structure setting sail. Not enough weight in those boxes .

[SueTrbovec]

Hey there at This Old House: You made my day! I'm in a rented property in Australia and there is no structure to put on a shade sail. I had a little hard time and found Your video❣That's such a simple and brilliant solution I will use for my porch. My question: how high is the wooden barrel? I couldn't open the links in Your description unfortunately. Thank You very much. Kind Regards from New South Wales Sue

[mpxz]

A 10-12ft cantilever umbrella would have made more sense in every way right here