About Erinvale Blinds: shading made for the Helderberg's lower slopes

Specified for the mountain, the salt and the wind

Erinvale sits on the Helderberg's lower slopes, wrapped around its golf course, with False Bay visible on a clear day. That position decides what belongs on the glass more than fashion or habit does. The mountain throws long afternoon shade over some fairways and none over others, so a west-facing lounge on an open stand can run hot into the evening while the house two doors down barely notices. False Bay is near enough that cheap exterior hardware pits and seizes within a season or two. And between gusts off the mountain and the summer south-easter, wind arrives with real force.

So the specification follows the place: sunscreen weaves around three to five percent openness on fairway-facing glass, powder-coated aluminium and sealed cassettes on anything exterior, a wind sensor on every awning and external blind, and moisture-tolerant materials in the rooms a wet Cape winter makes steamy. The premium end is external shading, mounted outside the glass so the Helderberg sun is stopped before it becomes indoor heat.

This side of the mountain

Home base is Erinvale and the rest of the Helderberg basin is a short drive. Somerset West runs from oak-lined streets and Cape Dutch-influenced homes near the old centre out to the newer estate belt on its edges. Gordon's Bay stacks up the mountainside above its harbour, every metre closer to the water raising the stakes for exterior hardware. Strand is a flat beachfront of apartments and family homes taking sun and salt spray head-on. Stellenbosch, over the hill, pairs some of the oldest window openings we measure with some of the newest wine-estate glass walls. Same consultant, same written-quote process, same free measure across all of them.

The road to fitted

One conversation, one visit, one piece of paper, one fitting day. It starts on the form or the chat, where you tell us which rooms are misbehaving. One of our expert consultants will contact you shortly and books a free in-home measure. We come with sample books, measure each opening to the millimetre, assess the substrate and the exposure, and talk fabric, openness and motors room by room, estate finish guidelines included. A written quote follows with a line for every window, so you can sit with it, stage it or trim it; pricing is confirmed in that document and so is the lead time for each product.

When you approve it, the order is manufactured to those figures and installed neatly, in one visit where the order allows, and demonstrated before the drill goes back in the bag. We are happy to quote a first phase and leave the rest for later, because almost nobody shades a whole house at once and almost nobody should. If your first phase includes anything fixed outside, the elevation drawing and colour reference for your estate submission come with the quote.

Ranked, not bundled

Our free guide, Which Windows First, sets out the order we would work in on this estate rather than listing products: first the room that empties at four o'clock, where exterior shading earns its premium; second the double-volume and gable glass no ladder should meet, where motorisation and tensioned tracks are the mechanism rather than a luxury; third the veranda, zip screens where it is exposed and a wind-sensored awning where it is sheltered; fourth the bedrooms, where the fitting decides darkness more than the fabric; and fifth the wet rooms, where aluminium venetians shrug off a steamy winter that would bow timber.

What we are honest about

We do not quote from photographs or phone descriptions; the numbers arrive after the measure, itemised, in writing. The roller shutters we fit are for sun, heat and glare, not certified security barriers, and a security rating is a different product quoted separately. We do not hold the estate's guideline document, we do not describe an approval as a formality, and we do not lodge anything in your name; we prepare the drawing and colour reference and hold manufacture until you have an answer. And we would rather fit fewer openings well, in marine-grade hardware, than more openings in fittings this coast will destroy.

A person, not a queue

The way in is the enquiry form on any page or the on-page chat. Your enquiry lands with a consultant who phones you back to set a time that suits your week, with no ticket numbers and no hold music. We take your details to set up the free in-home measure and the call-back that follows, and for nothing else; they are handled under POPIA and never shared or sold.