Zip Screens & Outdoor Rooms — Drakenstein Valley

The zip difference

The fabric edge is welded into a zipper that runs captive in aluminium side channels — no flapping, no gaps, real resistance to wind. An ordinary drop screen flaps and escapes its guides the moment a gust hits; a zipped screen holds tension through exactly the kind of mountain-funnelled gust this valley produces on its stillest, hottest afternoons.

Fabric choices

Sunscreen mesh (various openness levels) — keeps the vineyard view, cuts glare and UV, keeps insects out, gives daytime privacy
Clear PVC / crystal panels — a wind-and-rain-proof enclosure that keeps the view entirely open, right for a winter braai room on a stoep that would otherwise sit unused half the year
Blockout options for an outdoor cinema evening or killing hard west sun outright

Practical notes

Motorisation is standard on wider spans, and a wind-sensor retract is worth specifying on any exposed stoep here — the same funnelled gusts that argue for a wind sensor on an awning apply just as directly to a screen. Spans run wide (4m-plus class per screen), and channels are colour-matched to the structure rather than left as a stock finish.

Where they earn their keep across the valley

Entertainment decks on the newer wine-estate homes near Groot Drakenstein and open, less-sheltered stoeps out toward Simonsvlei are where these do the most work — both sit further from any windbreak of trees or neighbouring buildings than a town garden would.

The rand figure, valley-wide

Zip screens are rated on screen area, fitted and working. Manual: R2,800 to R4,500 for a square metre, with the mesh and the height of the drop deciding where an opening lands. Motorised: R4,000 to R6,000, which is where most stoep enclosures end up once the openings run past head height.

A narrow screen still needs its own side channels, headbox and fixings, so small openings carry a minimum rather than pricing down in proportion. The rates size up a project; each opening is measured and quoted on its own, on paper, before anything is ordered.