Customers have a lot of options on where to buy retractable awnings. From catalogs to infomercials, homeowners are in a
retractable awning media blitz from early spring through late fall. Companies attempt to establish trust in different ways: traditional store fronts use cheerful displays, online stores tout free accessories. Through the marketing haze, customers can find the best company to deal with if they know what makes a good retractable awning company.
The first best indication of a good awning company is that they have some means of rendering a preview of a particular awning style on a specific property. The most basic tool is an exhaustive photo gallery, showing examples of their different
retractable awning styles at every angle and on many different styles of residential and commercial buildings.
Ideally, they will provide a way to depict the potential awning based on images of your own building. For example, some companies do mockups based on the size, style, and fabric of their awing on a photograph of your home, while a few have a web application on their site which dynamically upload photos of your home and allows you to change awning frame and fabric styles, sizes, and installation locations on the fly - and even create a price estimate based on your final design.
Most likely, you will not get the right awning and get stuck with an ugly fabric, a fabric which isn't water resistant, wrong frame design, wrong size or projection for your area, or a poor quality frame. It can even be a terrible experience, suffering through inattentive or uninformed personnel, a lack of support, no service or return policies, even delays in receiving your awning. Since retractable awnings can be several thousand dollars for high-quality styles, and around $1000 even for budget lines, that's not an insignificant loss.
Additionally, poor quality awnings last about a quarter as long as a good retractable awning. The frames from good awning companies are guaranteed for 25 years, compared to 5 years or less (or not at all), while the fabric lasts 10-15 years, compared to 2-5 years.
