External venetian blinds mounted outside tall sash windows on a stately Johannesburg parks-belt home, seen through an oak canopy

The Saxonwold Light & Shade Field Guide

How the sun moves over these avenues through the year, what it does to each elevation of an old house, and what we’d specify where — trade-offs said out loud.

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Written for Saxonwold, sources at the foot
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Where to start

A suburb built inside a timber plantation.

Saxonwold’s trees came first and its houses came second. Hermann Eckstein’s company planted a timber plantation here called Sachsenwald in 1891 — over a million blue gum and red gum trees across roughly 1,300 acres, grown for mine props — and only in 1925 was what remained laid out as a township, its streets set so that houses kept sight of the Rand Regiments Memorial. Nobody arranged these avenues around the sun.

That explains most of what we find at the window. Light here has been through a canopy before it reaches the glass, which leads to a comfortable wrong conclusion: we have big trees, so we don’t really need blinds. Dappled light is still direct light. The shadow moves all day, thins the moment a limb comes out, and in winter — when the low northern sun matters most — much of it is on the ground.

Timber venetian blind tilted half open on a tall sash window in a book-lined study, throwing bands of light across a wooden floor
Tilt, not just up and down

Low sun is a sideways problem.

A blind that only goes up and down has one answer to a 20° afternoon sun: cover the window. A slat that tilts has a second.

Room by room

Four elevations, four different problems.

Walk the house once with the compass on your phone. Aspect changes the answer more than what the room is used for.

  1. North — solve it with geometry first

    North glass takes a near-vertical sun in summer and a low one in winter, so it is the one elevation where a horizontal projection works: a deep eave or stoep roof blocks most of December while still letting June in. That is the logic SANS 10400-XA applies to new buildings.

  2. West — the elevation that ruins afternoons

    Across the year the sun sets between 243° and 295°, and by then it is low — arriving under the eave and straight at the glass, so overhead projections do almost nothing. This is the elevation to spend on.

  3. East — the same geometry, half the penalty

    East glass gets the mirror image, from about 05:13 in midsummer. The air and the building fabric are still cool, so glare and waking early matter more than heat gain. East bedrooms are a blockout conversation; living rooms usually are not.

  4. South — not immune, just late to it

    Because midsummer sunrise and sunset both sit south of the east–west line, a south wall takes low sun early and late in December, then none in winter. The coolest, flattest-lit rooms — best left lightly dressed.

What we'd fit, and why

The reasoning, and the honest catch with each.

Nothing here is right everywhere. Each of these beats its obvious alternative on a particular elevation, and each costs you something. Tap Add to my enquiry and it carries down to the form below.

Navy blockout roller blind, a single flat sheet of fabric on a tube with no folds, drawn part-way down an old painted sash window

Roller blinds — sunscreen or blockout

Best on: park-facing glass (sunscreen) · bedrooms (blockout)

Why here. A 3–5% openness sunscreen keeps the view that made you buy the house while cutting glare and much of the ultraviolet that fades floors and rugs. Blockout does the opposite job: first light is 05:13 in midsummer, and one flat sheet of fabric on a tube answers that.

The catch. Sunscreen reverses after dark — lights on inside and it gives far less privacy at night. Blockout is only as dark as its edges: inside the reveal there is a light line down each side. A double roller puts both on one window.

Day-night blinds

Best on: rooms over a walking route or a shared boundary

Why here. Alternating sheer and solid bands slide past each other, so one blind moves from open view to eye-level privacy without ever being raised — a gentler answer than a vertical blind.

The catch. Never a true blockout, and the banding is a strong pattern against plain heritage joinery. Hold a sample in your own room first.

Cellular honeycomb blind fitted inside the deep reveal of a sash window in a restored bedroom, its hexagonal cell structure visible at the edge

Cellular / honeycomb blinds

Best on: single glazing you cannot replace

Why here. The fabric folds into hexagonal cells holding still air against the glass. In a 1920s room with single glazing, high ceilings and June minima near freezing, that trapped air is the least invasive comfort upgrade going — no new frames, no altered sashes, nothing about the window changed.

The catch. It sits on the wrong side of the glass for summer heat gain: against a hard west sun an external product beats it, because the cellular is only slowing heat that already came through the pane. On a bad west window the answer is usually both.

Timber & aluminium venetian blinds

Best on: studies and living rooms (timber) · wet rooms (aluminium)

Why here. Low western sun is a sideways problem and a tilting slat answers it sideways: close the angle and the room stays bright while the direct beam stops. A roller has one move.

The catch. Timber stacks deeper than a roller, so it eats more glass when fully up, and it dislikes steam — which is why wet rooms get aluminium.

External venetians & roller shutters

Best on: hard west and north-west glass with no overhang

Why here. Both stop the sun outside the glass, which keeps a room cooler than absorbing it inside: an interior blockout kills glare instantly, but the pane still heats and radiates all evening. External venetians tilt, so a view survives; roller shutters close fully into a smaller box.

The catch. In relative terms the dearest answers here. Both need a wind strategy through hail season, usually want a motor, and count as exterior alterations. Shading, not security: our roller shutters are made for sun, heat and glare control on the outside of the glass. They are not security-rated shutters — that is a different product, which we can quote on request.

Folding-arm awning extended over a paved stoep at the garden facade of a stone Johannesburg home, with gum and oak trees casting late shadows

Folding-arm awnings & zip screens

Best on: the stoep and the terrace

Why here. An awning shades a terrace with no posts in the way, which is why it beats a fixed pergola where you want the winter sun back. A zip screen does a different job — fabric under tension in side channels, holding shape in wind while still showing you the garden.

The catch. This is the Highveld from October to March. Wind and hail ratings are engineering limits, not marketing, and an awning caught open in a November gust does not survive it — so we would rather specify a motor and wind sensor than a manual awning.

Motorisation

Best on: tall sashes, gables, skylights, anything outdoors

Why here. With three-metre ceilings it is not a luxury — a blind nobody can reach is a blind nobody adjusts. Outdoors a wind sensor retracts an awning before a storm arrives, including while you are out.

The catch. Motors need power, and finding a cable route that does not chase an original wall is a real question here. Battery motors trade that for a charging routine.

Optional

Want this guide marked up for your own house?

Tell us which rooms are the problem and we'll send this back to you with notes against your actual elevations — which of the answers above we'd start with, and which we'd leave alone. No visit involved, and no obligation to book one.

We use these details only to send you the guide and, if you ask for it, to arrange a consultation call-back (POPIA). No marketing lists, no sharing with third parties.

Heritage

The sixty-year rule, and where it bites.

Saxonwold was proclaimed a township in 1925, so most of its original houses are past sixty years old — and that age alone matters. Section 34(1) of the National Heritage Resources Act says no person may alter or demolish any structure, or part of a structure, older than sixty years without a permit from the relevant provincial heritage resources authority. The Act’s definition of “alter” is broad: any action affecting the structure, appearance or physical properties of a place. Age is the trigger, not listing, and unauthorised work can end with an instruction to put the building back as it was.

That draws a clean line through this guide. Blinds fitted inside the room touch neither the structure nor how the house reads from the street. Anything outside does. We are blind fitters, not heritage practitioners, so we will not tell you what the answer will be for your address — but we will raise it at the measure and design the interior specification so you have a good option either way.

Two ways forward

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Both start below, on one short form.

Recommended

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The close

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We use these details only to arrange your consultation call-back and, if you've added sizes, to send your budget range (POPIA). No marketing lists, no sharing with third parties.

Sources

Where the numbers on this page come from.

Every climate, sun-path, heritage and history figure above is taken from the following. Where a figure is disputed or unverifiable, we've left it out rather than round it into a sentence.

Reading this on another suburb's window? The same sun-path reasoning applies across Parkview, Parktown North, Forest Town and Houghton Estate — the housing stock and the exposure are what change.