Shade structure design - feeback / advice please!

[azymuth]

Hi all, I've drafted up some plans for a shade structure for this year's burn and I'd appreciate some feeback.

I'm trying to optimise for shade area, ease of rigging up / down / adjusting and peace of mind when its blowing.

Its my first time building on the playa so have done a lot of research here and elsewhere. Trying to make use of all the available wisdom, keep it simple and use as few materials as possible.

The main inspiration for the design came from tensegrity shade structures and this interesting article here.

Drafting sketches here and here

Materials:

• 4 x 3''x4''x12'.7'' poles

• 1 x 3''x4''x14'.7'' central spacing pole

• 500m 750 paracord / trucker rope

• 2 x 12'16' 80% shade cloth / bungie balls

• 10 x 12'' lag screws / chain for anchors

• 10 x medium ratchet straps for anchor <> guy purchase

My main question - is this reasonable? Stupid? I've done my share of rigging but not in a desert. I'm also wondering about anchors, lag screws seem to be better than rebar and playa staples too expensive, but are there any gotchas here? Anything else?

Would really appreciate thoughts, and I'm prepared for snark, hit me!

A

[Jackass]

I'd just make a flat top emt. Tensegrity shade looks cool, but can be hard to get right, and usually if it fails there is no plan B. I've seen a few fail in the neighborhood after some gusts and they rarely ever came back up.

[Token]

If you are using the strong knit shade cloth, the heavy stuff, you can skip the tensegrity part and go full tensile with the shade cloth as a stressed member instead of the paracord on the edges.

Did that kind of design for years using 10’ schedule 40 aluminum pipe and Holeander fittings.

Please note, if you tie any part of the shade to the RV, it will rock the RV in the wind. I kind of liked that but if it’s a rental beware paint getting messed up.

[azymuth]

Appreciated!

Flat top EMT was my first plan, but it seemed like a lot of moving peices to haul up. My main question with the pipe is the best way to anchor it. It seems like the best way is to have a bolt jamming it against some rebar, which raises the question of how to weld a bolt fixture on the pipe. Are there easier ways?

I was planning on getting as heavy shade cloth as I could, and I suppose plan B if it did come down would be some kind of guy'd out lean-to against the RV.

Will definitely organise something to guard against the friction on the RV - maybe some felt fixed with some painters tape. Totally hadn't thought of that.

Thanks again!

[Jackass]

It seems like the best way is to have a bolt jamming it against some rebar, which raises the question of how to weld a bolt fixture on the pipe.

That's exactly how I do. But in absence of the bolt pinning the rebar, you can slip it over the rebar and guyline out to keep it from lifting.

[azymuth]

Would you still want to slip the pole over rebar or would you be alright with 2 guys for each corner and a some in the centre?

[Jackass]

iphone 4-21-18 435.JPG

Look mom, no guy lines!!

[Jackass]

Rebar, so it can't "walk away". I use 3/4" emt, 1/2" rebar 24" long. 12 legs, 2 tiers 8.5' and 7.5', 14'X26' overall

[Fancynstuff]

I see suggestions in this thread for covering an rv with reflective bubble wrap. On another thread i see people suggesting aluminet. Does anyone have a preference or advice on the difference?

[Jackass]

And whatever you end up bringing, it's ALWAYS a good GREAT idea to set it up at home and leave it up a few days if you can.

[Canoe]

I see suggestions in this thread for covering an rv with reflective bubble wrap. On another thread i see people suggesting aluminet. Does anyone have a preference or advice on the difference?

Aluminet reflects away a % of solar energy reaching the RV. And if the Aluminet goes down to ground, then it's between the RV and the ground further away, so then also reflects away some of the heat coming from the sun-baked ground, while reducing the sun baking under the edge of your RV and radiating up from below. I'm assuming it's setup with a healthy gap between the Aluminet and the RV surface, so the wind can take away the heat that the Aluminet will gain, rather than have that heat conducting or radiate in/at the RV.

The reflective bubble wrap attaches directly to the RV (Stucco Tape), provides much better reflection, and it's covering the RV's windows (roof vents, windshield, etc.), so it protects from all radiant sources, and provides some insulation from the hot air. Same if it's covering the RV roof or sides, but the glass and roof vents are the major heat sources.
Doesn't stop the sun from baking under the edge of the RV, but this isn't as major a heat source as the glass and roof. I'd consider some Aluminet just to shade the sun-side of the RV down low to keep the sun out from under it, but that's going really thorough - easier to add a swamp-cooler to handle what heat does get through to inside.

[Token]

I see suggestions in this thread for covering an rv with reflective bubble wrap. On another thread i see people suggesting aluminet. Does anyone have a preference or advice on the difference?

Aluminet is thin (1 mm) micron thickness strands of aluminized (shiny) HDPE knit together into a shade cloth. Very strong, lightweight and it breathes like Egyptian cotton. Very stretchy and Flows in the breeze. Used for agriculture and behaves like cloth.

Reflectix comes in several configurations but the one we talk about is basically in a big roll, semi flexible and is glorified bubble wrap layers sandwiched together with micron thin aluminum sheets and shrink wrapped in PE. Used in HVAC and construction as radiant barrier and insulation when deeployed with an air gap. Also is a vapor barrier and does not breathe one bit. Behaves like a sheet of thin flimsy cardboard. Also very shiny.

Both are proven on Playa when properly deployed.

Don’t overthink this and become a slave to your camp design. Reach good-enough and realize you will spend less than 4 hours per day in camp. You already have the RV and are way ahead of the curve.

[Canoe]

Would really appreciate thoughts, and I'm prepared for snark, hit me!

In your diagram, you show the guy-lines going up and joining together a short distance shy of attaching to the pole. This leaves the pole some wiggle room. If you have those guy-lines going directly to the pole, that will hold that point in space much better, reducing dynamic movement under wind.

Afraid I can't think of any snark right now. Is the Captain available?

[Canoe]

Token, we should play volleyball.

[Token]

Hey, we are both fans of shiny metalized plastic and how it affects enthalpy!

For a guy with all the physical attributes of an athlete, I suck fiercly at most team sports Gimme a chainsaw instead and step back.

BTW, we have been pretty snark free on this one.

[Toe]

I'm a pretty big fan of using shade cloth as a stressed member. A neat discovery this year was that a freeform tent can have structural redundancy. One of the skinny paracord guy lines wore through due to a truckers hitch, but the shade just readjusted to compensate. The structure stayed up and barely flinched.

Redundant designs are great. Ask yourself what would happen if any one part failed? One way of doing structural redundancy is the 'belt and suspenders' approach where you pile on more backup supports. But I prefer an approach where redundancy is inherent to the materials and the design. Think 'safe to fail' rather than failsafe.

In my camp's case, some things went wrong. One guy line broke (due to abrasion), one support pole got overenthusiastically stabbed through the shade cloth, the lightweight central pole fell over (because it was too short and so wasn't under enough compression), and the wind blew hard as usual.

With other structures any one of these could be a disaster. The falling pole was just a 2x2 stick with a rubber innertube turban so we barely noticed when it fell over. In the case of the freeform tent, the stretchy shade fabric is the principal bracing structure, and the windbreak, and the wall, and the roof, and it didn't tear much because it's knitted not woven. It's inherently redundant Plus it was cheap.

There is redundancy inherent to the distribution of anchors. Because the fabric is lightweight it doesn't need super strong rope and it can't take grommets. So we didn't need lots of rope, we used short lengths of cord. The cord ties to the fabric around a tennis ball. This let us readjust cord positioning on the fly. The stretchiness of the fabric automatically balanced the load between the anchor points. And we used lag bolts so nobody stepped on rebar.

So rather than being failsafe our tent was safe to fail. I love it.

[Toe]

@azymuth In your drawing the support poles are on an angle. This is fine and/but in my experience there hasn't been much practical difference between vertical poles and angled poles except that vertical poles take up more space. Of course the pole angle is going to be more or less stable relative to how wide your guy line anchors are.

One dirty trick I use sometimes is to dig a little hole like 6 inches deep and sit the foot of the pole in the hole. The purpose of the hole is to keep the pole from walking around. The function is similar to a big nail or rebar holding the base of the pole but without any equipment required except maybe a trowel.

Pole in the hole.