Keystone Fabrics E60.48.61 Diamond Plus Exterior Solar Shade, Granite, 4-Feet by 8-Feet

We have a west-facing concrete deck. It's a wonderful space that is about 2/3 covered with a roof, but it's almost unusable on hot summer evenings. Last year we bought a couple of discount plastic roll-up shades from a big box store, and I built a wooden valence to house them (rather than try to secure them directly to the aluminum soffit). The shades helped a lot, but were bulky and awkward to operate and maintain ... and after one year they were already starting to show their age. So we recently purchased two of these six footers to replaced them, and overall we're very pleased.We like the look. Our railings and posts are black, and the soffit and valence are white, so these look great in that location.Very simple to operate, and stay where you put them.The cloth catches the breeze a bit more than I expected, but they're pretty stable nonetheless.They create a wonderful shade, while still allowing some light to pass through. We've already spent a few evenings out there that would have been unbearable before (even with the plastic shades, which seemed to radiate heat off the back side when they were getting blasted by the late afternoon sun).Packaging was excellent. Each unit came in its standard clear plastic packaging, and inside a very heavy-duty cardboard tube ... I'm talking 6" ID tubes with 3/16" wall, strong enough to stand on (if you have good balance).The installation method is very easy, even though I had to shim out one of the brackets on each unit to allow the shade to a bolt securing my wooden valence to the deck columns.However, I dinged them one star for a couple of quality issues: (1) the clutch and plug bracket screws were apparently installed with power drivers because they were severely over-tightened, and a couple of them had stripped heads, which made it very difficult when I needed to switch the cord to the other side on one of the units (I ended up using a locking pliers to grab the screw and get it out); and (2) one of the units was missing the cord safety device (this latter is a very minor issue, as I expect them to send me one, but it was worth mentioning).One tip when evaluating the installation site: The width dimension is the fabric ... the bottom tube and main housing are both wider than that ... for example, for our 6' units, the bottom tube is about 73" and the main housing is about 74". I was lucky that the space between columns was slightly over 12', so my wooden valence structure had just enough space for the units.

Was delivered by 3rd party shipper, they called ahead of time to set up delivery time. Very easy, it came in long cardboard tube that was very durable. I had to use a skill saw to cut it up into 1 ft pieces for recycle trash can. The shade was packaged well, it is all housed in one unit, pull cord is already attached. There was no assembling whatsoever, which was great. It came with a 10 ft section of paper that had guide marks on it. I taped the paper to the beam on our patio. There are 3 fasteners, made of strong metal with 2 screws per fastener, screws were about 1 1/2 -2 inch length. I lined them up, one on each end and one in the middle against the guide paper. Screwed them in, done. Took a razor and cut the remaining paper guide off beam. Then my wife and I propped the shade unit onto the beam with the fasteners and "click" 3 times, set. It was beyond simple. The quality is superb. It also comes with bungee ties that can be anchored to the bottom. The roller clamp also has an anchor point to give it some tightness while lowering and raising shade. I'm very happy with it. The only con I would mention is the lack of instructions, would have been nice to see a picture diagram or something, but it is so simple I can't see anyone not being able to figure out how to install it.One more thing, it can be mounted on top of the shade or behind it. Hope that makes sense, there are 2 ways that these can click into the fasteners, depending on how your patio is set up. I went with the behind shade set up since I was mounting against a wooden beam.

So I was super excited to get my 3 shades.. 8ft x 8ft.. They looked great.. They arrived earlier than I expected. Off to a great start I was thinking. I got home today 7/13.. Its Friday the 13th.. Should have been my first clue.... I wanted to put my shades up tonight so I could use them tomorrow to test them out in the afternoon sun. My new Patio off my garage faces the west so it gets nothing but sun in the evening which makes it unbearable to sit on. Enter these shades. I did a ton of research. These were the only ones I really really liked enough to invest this much money into without going full custom shades. Started unboxing the first of the 3 shades. Got it out of the box looks amazing. Got out the install instructions.. Hung the template perfectly as instructed. I am a woman.. I read the instructions. Got the holes drilled in just the right spots.. Lifted the 8ft shade and hung it exactly as instructed in the manual. Clicked it in place.. Thinking man that was too easy. Referred back to the instructions for next steps.. Thought I want to test to see how it rolls up and down with the cord before I secure the cord to the wall as instructed.. Gave the cord a slight tug like it says on the instructions and nothing... Tried pulling in the other direction and nothing... The cord wouldn't move. Stuck my fingers up into the roller for the cord and the cord was not secured in the device. I thought... Well... It couldn't have been that easy anyway... So I then followed the instructions to swap the side the cord is on just to take the cord pulley off to see if I could further investigate the issue and maybe resolve it. There was no way to get the cord back in the track without taking the entire contraption apart. Because the pulley hadn't been assembled correctly which made the cradle and gears hang loose in the pulley. I considered taking the other 2 shades out of their boxes and seeing if the cords on the other 2 shades work.. But my level of frustration with the very first shade is so high I don't even want to touch the other 2. I plan to return the shades all together. I am so disappointed with this product.. For almost $200 each these should have worked right out of the box. I will certainly never buy another Keystone product and fully intend to tell everyone I know not to purchase their products. The cord being the most important component of the shades and they didn't get that right.. I have little to no faith in their products or company if this is the kind of products that leave their factory.