Shade fabric HELP

[moon_rider]

Burners need you help please. I going want to build shade structure and can't find where to buy this kind of fabric. If anyone knows can you please send me link or what the actual name of this product is? I have attached a picture.

Thank you so much. BM2020

[Ratty]

That looks like shade cloth from the garden department. It comes in different weights and various amounts of shade from it.

[Jackass]

You're going to want something with a little more weave than that. A camp mate brings that stuff and while it's better than being in direct sun light, it's not by much.

[some seeing eye]

"Shade cloth" is varied.
The most common and cheapest is polyester or "knitted" shade cloth - your picture. It comes in colors and % shade.

The high tech shade cloth is Aluminet, as far as we can tell from a patented maker in Israel. The warp is a twisted synthetic fiber with aluminized mylar like Christmas tinsel and a synthetic weft. It is also in % shade.

Aluminet is stretchy and poly shade cloth doesn't stretch much.

Poly shade cloth can sometimes be found on Craigs from farmers and greenhouses. Burners sometimes sell their Aluminet. New, poly starts in the $.10/sf+ and Aluminet in the $.30/sf+ range.

You photo shows it edged and grommeted, that costs extra and is recommended, because shade cloth catches wind and has to be secured.

You can search my posts for preferred sources, but I've heard what's available in Canada and tariffs may influence the price.

Some years arctic camouflage or snow camo net with wind cutouts has been popular, but availability varies. Surplus desert camo net is plentiful for the wrong reasons.

[Popeye]

Check https://www.greenhousemegastore.com/cov ... ade-cloth/

If you use the search function at the top of this page or google Eplaya: shade cloth you will find more than you want to know on the subject.

[Papa Bear]

The high tech shade cloth is Aluminet, as far as we can tell from a patented maker in Israel.

If I'm not mistaken, that patent expired a few years ago, though the name Aluminet is still trademarked. You can now buy the same stuff from other makers, just look for names like "Alumimesh".

[motskyroonmatick]

I've ordered from Gothic Arches Greenhouses with much success. You definitely want Knit Shade Cloth as it does not unravel as far if it gets a hole in it. You want folded and taped edges and grommets every 2 feet as well as 2 grommets 4 inched from each corner. They are familiar with burners and often offer a burner discount. Try your best to get 80% or above as far as shade number. Below 70% the benefits of shade become much less notable. Aluminet in my experience is the very best you can get.

[Canoe]

Don't forget that shade cloth makes a nice wind wall too. It shades/reflects the heat on the other side away, and all the little holes mean that it will release air pressure through them too.

[DoctorIknow]

Don't forget that shade cloth makes a nice wind wall too. .

80% and above shade material can be great to block playa dust blowing straight into your tent entrance. Everyone wants to have wind protection around their home, be it vehicles or larger dwellings, but many times one has no ability to set up in perfect relationship to prevailing winds.

I have a conduit shade structure, and have a dense black mesh shade cloth going at an angle from the conduit to about 6' from the tent entrance, and lagscrew the edge right against the playa, to mitigate that surface playa dust from sneaking under the mesh.

I doubt my tent would have survived some major wind carnage in past years without shade on all sides, as the concept of prevailing winds being "prevailing" isn't the way it is in many whiteout windstorms.

[kimbersykes]

Try these guys. We ordered over 40 units of the 10 x 12 and we're extremely pleased with the heat resistance and shade. Much cheaper than Aluminet.

https://shadeclothstore.com/product/silvishade-80/

Note we needed to run a line of thin rope diagonally from corner to corner of the shade to stop the sag of the fabric which worked well. Let me know if you want more details or photos of our setup.

[Canoe]

... Let me know if you want more details or photos of our setup.

Please!
From a distance showing a whole tarp, and any closer that may show edging or grommets, etc..

[kimbersykes]

Hi Canoe,

This photo shows the SilviShade and how we 'managed' the sag with the diagonal rope. https://www.dropbox.com/s/yb7f8jc1fxnrf ... 0.jpg?dl=0

The shade cloth came edged with grommets every two feet. We purchased the ball bungees from Shade Cloth Store also but if ordering again we would go for the smallest length bungee as we had to triple over the bungees to get them as taught as possible.

We also added sides bungeed together stretched out to the full length of the shade and lag screwed into the ground. We also had 60W solar panels powering the swamp coolers that Will is kindly cleaning for us in this photo

https://www.dropbox.com/s/84aby9l9khq6g ... 4.jpg?dl=0

I am in the process of writing up a How To with everything that we did last year as we thought it was a great success and have had some inquires from neighbours however it might be a few months before that is complete. I will share on this thread once it is.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Kimber

[Canoe]

Thanks!
Looks good too.

From the small patches on the ground with direct sunlight, one can get an idea how much sun it's blocking.

Any MOOP from it in the winds?

[ken]

We bought 75%, 80% and 90% from the greenhouse mega store that Popeye mentions above. I wouldn't waste my money on anything below 90% ever again. Noticeable difference. We had the 75% on 1/2 of our large monkey hut and 90% on the other. Everyone congregates under the 90.

Greenhouse mega store has at predetermined sizes with grommets etc already installed, or you can order custom sizes and they will grommet for you.

Cheaper than aluminet and was cooler than our neighbors aluminet. They ended up hanging out under our shade instead of their own. Been using it 8 years and still going strong.

[ken]

Also, put on sunscreen even if you are hanging out under the shade. You still sunburn under there. It doesn't block everything.

[lucky420]

Also, put on sunscreen even if you are hanging out under the shade. You still sunburn under there. It doesn't block everything.

Hi Ken!

Ken knows about sunburn, listen to Ken

[kimbersykes]

Any MOOP from it in the winds?

No issues with MOOP at all. everything was sealed and we transported it in boxes so no rips etc.

[Jeannie Ginx]

i'm building my first monkey hut shade structure. I'm going with white tarp and cover that with aluminet to reflect sun rays back. I hope that the white tarp will allow a bit of light to come in around the bottom of the hut and the very top of the hut to be total shade.

[ken]

without more info i think you are heading in the wrong direction.

[Canoe]

i'm building my first monkey hut shade structure. I'm going with white tarp and cover that with aluminet to reflect sun rays back. I hope that the white tarp will allow a bit of light to come in around the bottom of the hut and the very top of the hut to be total shade.

You need to do a lot more reading about monkey huts and the covers used.
One of the big benefits of aluminet is that it's a net. Air moving through it allows it to get rid of what heat it has absorbed as it can't reflect away 100% of heat from the sun and heat radiated at it from sun-baked ground. It also lets sun/light through...

Different materials, different colours, don't necessarily result in what you'd think they would. You've got radiation from the sun, the sun-baked ground, reflected from other structures and you've got hot dry air, often blowing.

It's good that you're planning and thinking, but you need more information to do that thinking with. All sorts of people have already posted their experiences On The Black Rock Playa, so you can know what to expect once you're on the playa. Google eplaya for the various tarp/shade-cloth types and on monkey huts, what has or hasn't worked well.

... google Eplaya: shade cloth you will find more than you want to know on the subject.

[Jeannie Ginx]

thanks for the info Canoe.

I was worried about a sand storm and was hopeing that a tarp under the aluminet would protect us a bit more in case we had a white out. Something to think about. I wonder if I can find a way to have my white tarp down first, something on top of that for airflow and the aluminet over the whole thing. have some out of the box thinking to do... and I only have 13 more months to do it.

[Canoe]

thanks for the info Canoe.
I was worried about a sand storm and was hopeing that a tarp under the aluminet would protect us a bit more in case we had a white out. Something to think about. I wonder if I can find a way to have my white tarp down first, something on top of that for airflow and the aluminet over the whole thing. have some out of the box thinking to do... and I only have 13 more months to do it.

No sand storms. But dust storms. A lot of it sub 1 micron.
A Monkey hut, with one of the many standard covers, AND with the ends covered, has great resistance to heavy winds (sloped ends is nice for that). IF you make it the way people have determined by trial and errors, and some blood, sweat & tears, works on playa, for wind protection and protection from the heat.
If you're trying to cover the Monkey Hut structure with aluminet, you haven't yet discovered the key elements of a Monkey Hut and why they work, as that would just be a monkey hut ribs with a partial shade fabric. Nice for partial shade, but doesn't provide the Monkey Hut benefits. Aluminet is great to have over the ends when the wind isn't blowing, as it lets air flow while blocking most of the heat radiated at it.
Start googling eplaya...

You need to start by reading ALL of a Survival Guide.

[Jeannie Ginx]

Canoe, thanks for the input. I was going to put down a white tarp of the money hut and lay aluminet on top of the white tarp of the hut. So I have wind/dust protection with the tarp and the solar/heat protection from the aluminet.

Aluminet will protect from sun but not wind/dust hence the combo meal.

Is this too much protection? The one thing that has kept me from burning man all these years is my photosensitivity. It was discovered that our family has a genetic disorder that makes us this way. I burn easy and need to take precaution from the heat or I'll won't be able to stay the full 10 days which has been a wish for many years now.



Love
J

[motskyroonmatick]

Generally the darker the color of the tarp the more light it blocks... also the more heat it will collect and radiate. In my experience white tarps don't add to darkening during the day time if that is a goal. Although I love Aluminet I think putting it over the top of your tarp will yield a small benefit for a pretty big cost. If you made a second monkey hut with at least a 1' air gap over your interior monkey hut there may be really good results. That's a lot of work and resources though. Using Aluminet over the ends is a good idea though in my opinion. There are many ways to do that but I would encourage a way where the peak of the monkey hut has some venting at the ends so heat can move out. It will move through the aluminum but slower than having an opening. Years ago I made basically a tarp igloo. Roughly a monkey hut with closed ends and only one opening to get in and out. It was ungodly hot in there and I ended up making another opening to try to get some airflow. It helped a little but the potato bug shaped hut still got really hot. A lot of times in pictures and videos you see monkey huts with open ends with the sun side having a shade cloth set up over it turning it in to a porch. I think that is a pretty good setup. In general the structure needs to be very sturdy. When people skimp on the size of the PVC they end up needing more of it. If it is not staked down properly then it starts to come apart in the high wind we have at every event. Another inconvenient mishap I see people make with monkey huts is making it small enough to just cover their tent and little room for else. If the monkey hut is generously larger than the tent there will be more room in the shade for having a little kitchen or front porch. Also with room above your tent your tent will stay cooler and the heat that gathers at the top will impact you less when you are standing up. If your tent is pushed to the shade side when set up and you can walk around it to the back of the hut... that gives a nice path for the wind when it aims directly at your hut which it will. I am a fan of the method of securing down the sides that involves rolling the tarp in a 2x2 and securing that to the playa. Having wind come under the edge of the monkey hut really increases the dust that will be caught in there. Having sealed edges on 2 sides will really help with dust and I think it helps the tarp stay put a lot better. If I were to do a monkey hut I would make it oversized and put up a minimum 20 x 20' flat topped shade on the porch side/afternoon sun side.

[Canoe]

... photosensitivity ... I burn easy ... take precaution from the heat ...

You're going to love (or hate) the weird & wacky on-playa performance of different materials.

All but aluminet will block all UV, so that covers sun burn. Note that UV can be reflected by shiny things in line of sight of the openings, including some from blue sky (don't know how sensitive you are).

One of the coolest monkey huts are those covered with dark material. yup
The IR and visible radiation from the sun gets largely absorbed as heat by the dark tarps (degraded by dust), so you'd think it would make an oven. But it also radiates away the heat it absorbs, conducts excess heat away into the air, with that enhanced by wind. This will also block the light for your photo-sensitivity. Oddly, for people inside, they report feeling rather cool. Best guess is that the dark tarp absorbs the heat people radiate instead of reflecting it back at them. This turns up with some tents with a black inside. In the examples/accounts of this, pay attention on if the ends are open/closed/shaded and orientation N/S or E/W.

So if it's in your budget, you could consider dark tarp for the photo-sensitivity block with 90% aluminet (or competitor) on top to minimize absorbing radiated heat. BUT, you may have a rubbing issue, and they may destroy each other in the wind. And you have to address the ends.

Hot air inside rises to the top, so that can be given a path out at an end. N/S with the N end open to let air in/out except in a dust storm gives you light but no direct sunlight. Also, sun-baked ground radiates heat in all directions, so that too will radiate in openings to the north.

You MIGHT end up with something shiny setup in line with an opening, and for both radiated IR/heat and photo-sensitivity you need to have something to block that. You could retreat to your tent, but it's nice to have a larger space to hang out in.

Orientation on the playa matters.
Check out where the sun rises and sets. https://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic ... 4#p1189324
Here's a view looking south, showing how the sun can enter the ends of monkey huts when the ends aren't shades, etc.. https://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic ... 3#p1188784
If it's setup with the ends N/S, then you've got tons of light coming in the south end, baking the ground there. So accept that or shade against it.
If it's setup up E/W, then the east end is open to the early morning sun, which is surprisingly hot by 9 am. And bright. Again, shade the end. Google eplaya (and plain google images) to see as many examples as you can find. On eplaya, you can also usually see construction details or images, and accounts of how it did/didn't work out on the playa, re setup, heat, dust, light, wind, etc..

A dual layer monkey hut, aluminet & dark tarp, with the layers spaced would be nice, but sounds like a pita. And not playa-proven. Lots of examples of the 'normal' monkey hut to copy from.

The best balance may be a darker tarp (gray seems popular) for the monkey hut (for various reasons covered above), with a swamp-cooler for insurance. Your magic treatment for heat protection is a DIY swamp-cooler. Flip a switch anytime you want instant chill. There are a number of playa-proven designs in that thread. https://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic ... 80&t=33842
Deviate in design or components used and you risk screwing up the ease of running it and its performance.
You can deviate all you want if you like playing with stuff, but you need heat relief, so check/ask in that thread.
Side benefit is it provides fresh chilled dust-free air to the interior. That can be the interior of your tent it's chilling, or of the monkey hut if it's reasonable sealed to keep the chilled air in (with an appropriate air vent up high in an end to let the hot dusty air be pushed out by the incoming air produced by the swamp-cooler. Ask in that thread if you need/want to change anything, to ensure it will work for you on the playa. Tent size: bucket cooker. Hut size, likely the Box Cooler (not much more cost than a bucket cooler and a lot quieter, with three fan speeds too). Known power needs (deep cycle battery) and potable water needs. You won't have to guess.

So many variations. Search for those examples with images and on-playa experiences.

[krly]

For the monkee hut I highly rec you use silver tarps (sold at most "tarp stores" and everywhere else). Definitely DON'T use the standard blue tarps. They'll turn your hut into a sauna mucho quicko!!

[Jeannie Ginx]

Thanks Canoe. yup a dark tarp is counterintuitive. I've heard so many opposing suggestions like using a white tarp since white reflects heat and such.

Also thanks for the compass info. I had planned on a north/south orientation and now I have a better idea.

I've already orderted the stuff to make my bucket cooler with the fans and water pump to moisten the absorbant pad. Just still refining my apporach for a solo virgin burner. So yeah this will definately be radical self-reliant but I've done a lot of crazy solo trips before, however, this will be extreme. I know it's early for buying stuff but I don't want to spend a grand all at once. If I don't get lucky enough for a ticket I will at least have a new solar setup for my outdoor creek pump system for my pool. (which is a sunken horse troff)

Now I'm thinking of refining my approach even more. For instance the monkey hut with fabic on the ends so I can close it if there is dust or when I'm out and about. Might even just make lean-to out of aluminet off the back of the hut and put my dome tent under that. So that way I can use the monkey hut for socializing and relaxing.

The Dalles is pretty hot in the summer so I will make my camp before I come down and test it out first and see what works.

... photosensitivity ... I burn easy ... take precaution from the heat ...

You're going to love (or hate) the weird & wacky on-playa performance of different materials.

All but aluminet will block all UV, so that covers sun burn. Note that UV can be reflected by shiny things in line of sight of the openings, including some from blue sky (don't know how sensitive you are).

One of the coolest monkey huts are those covered with dark material. yup
The IR and visible radiation from the sun gets largely absorbed as heat by the dark tarps (degraded by dust), so you'd think it would make an oven. But it also radiates away the heat it absorbs, conducts excess heat away into the air, with that enhanced by wind. This will also block the light for your photo-sensitivity. Oddly, for people inside, they report feeling rather cool. Best guess is that the dark tarp absorbs the heat people radiate instead of reflecting it back at them. This turns up with some tents with a black inside. In the examples/accounts of this, pay attention on if the ends are open/closed/shaded and orientation N/S or E/W.

Orientation on the playa matters.
Check out where the sun rises and sets. https://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic ... 4#p1189324
Here's a view looking south, showing how the sun can enter the ends of monkey huts when the ends aren't shades, etc.. https://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic ... 3#p1188784
If it's setup with the ends N/S, then you've got tons of light coming in the south end, baking the ground there. So accept that or shade against it.
If it's setup up E/W, then the east end is open to the early morning sun, which is surprisingly hot by 9 am. And bright. Again, shade the end. Google eplaya (and plain google images) to see as many examples as you can find. On eplaya, you can also usually see construction details or images, and accounts of how it did/didn't work out on the playa, re setup, heat, dust, light, wind, etc..

A dual layer monkey hut, aluminet & dark tarp, with the layers spaced would be nice, but sounds like a pita. And not playa-proven. Lots of examples of the 'normal' monkey hut to copy from.

The best balance may be a darker tarp (gray seems popular) for the monkey hut (for various reasons covered above), with a swamp-cooler for insurance. Your magic treatment for heat protection is a DIY swamp-cooler. Flip a switch anytime you want instant chill. There are a number of playa-proven designs in that thread. https://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic ... 80&t=33842
Deviate in design or components used and you risk screwing up the ease of running it and its performance.
You can deviate all you want if you like playing with stuff, but you need heat relief, so check/ask in that thread.
Side benefit is it provides fresh chilled dust-free air to the interior. That can be the interior of your tent it's chilling, or of the monkey hut if it's reasonable sealed to keep the chilled air in (with an appropriate air vent up high in an end to let the hot dusty air be pushed out by the incoming air produced by the swamp-cooler. Ask in that thread if you need/want to change anything, to ensure it will work for you on the playa. Tent size: bucket cooker. Hut size, likely the Box Cooler (not much more cost than a bucket cooler and a lot quieter, with three fan speeds too). Known power needs (deep cycle battery) and potable water needs. You won't have to guess.

So many variations. Search for those examples with images and on-playa experiences.