SunSetter Awnings Reviews

I purchased a motorized awning and also got the drop-down screen for the front. I was told the installation would take a day, but it was less than a day, which took around five hours. I lived in a house where I had a 20-foot span but my awning isn’t that large. It’s about half of that. We get a good deal of wind where I live because it’s an open area. You have to be careful with the awning because the kind of wind that blows around at times, even 30 miles an hour, could rip it right off the wall if you have it fully extended. So that’s something that should probably be looked at because people just forget. They open the awning, go out and suddenly, they get a bad wind off a rainstorm. When they come home, it’s ripped right off the house. But so far, the awning has only been up for about a year, and there are no signs of wear and tear.

You can retract the awning and it even retracts itself if the wind gets too high, which is a convenience right there. I got the light up underneath and the extension in the front. You can dim a light and it’s very sexy-looking. We entertain a lot back there in the summer and our family enjoyed it. I got the long one and I'm pleased with it. The only thing that I wish they had that we couldn't get was the bug thing to go around the whole thing. But other than that, I'm happy with it.

My daughter-in-law wants one and I told her to call SunSetter because they will work with you. I'm gonna tell my neighbor about it when I see her. She had a pergola for years and I asked my husband why she’s not having any issues with her pergola. And I looked back and the pergola is gone. So I'm gonna tell her about our awning. She's got a pool in her backyard and this would be nice for her backyard too. The awning is of good quality. Everything is expensive but SunSetter has to stay competitive.

A gentleman came over, did some measurements, gave us options on widths and gave us a quote for a SunSetter awning. He was very flexible when we wanted a special material. The online tools are good as well. I was able to download the PDFs, print out colored pages for my wife to look at, made sure they had a hunter green or whatever came close to it. We went with a premium material. They had standard materials there, but my wife insisted on forest green. It's more weatherproof and has guaranteed material. It's more expensive, but it comes out of the factory instead of the rolls.

The two guys who came to install set it up fine. However, I didn't know that the angle can be adjusted. We have a glass round table with an umbrella. Unfortunately, the awning was installed a little bit too low and I had to cut a part of the umbrella a little bit shorter. I probably would have asked to install it a little bit higher so we wouldn't have to deal with that.

Also, the awning can trap rainwater because it's not a really tight rollout. If you're not careful, the weight of the water can collapse the arms. We didn't run into that but I was a little surprised when I went to retract it and buckets of water came pouring off the thing. It might have been a bad weather system, because when I called the lady up, she was mentioning that a lot of people have the arms break within the last few days. But we bought a warranty which covers that. If the arms break for whatever reason, they'll get replaced free of charge. But as with any other thing, like solar system on top of the house, it's free parts, but you have to pay for labor, which is crazy money per hour. Every time they come by to look at anything, it's 150 bucks an hour. That's a really disappointing part.

The awning kind of squeaks sometimes when it's going out. I don't know what needs lubricating. The water collection is kind of a potential issue. Also, when I retract it back into the house and when the metal piece at the end of the material finds its way home back underneath the lower hang thing, it clanks a little bit. I was going to call them to see if there was any yearly maintenance I should do.

But other than those, everything's going good. The awning looks beautiful. My wife and I are very satisfied so far. We've installed it in the fall and we haven't had a chance to use in the summer yet, but we look forward to it. I never realized how expensive they were, but I haven't had it long enough to say one way or another. Ours was around $8,000. But it's worked for us. I'd just give others all the warnings that the material is not taut. You can't just leave it when it's drizzling or raining because it might be too much weight to buckle the thing.

I was able to accommodate the left-handed power cord. It turned out that the color that I got made my wife happier than the one that we ordered, so I said, “I am happy enough with what I got, but I want to let you know that somebody out there is getting the wrong awning and I got the wrong one, but I made it work.” They still insisted that I got the right awning. I said. “Fine. Just I'm happy with what I have. We'll just let it be.” They still wanted to send me a replacement awning. I said, “No, don't send it. If you send it, I'm going to keep it. I'm not going to send the other one back, and I'm not going to pay you any more money.” Eventually, they sent me a new fabric part of the awning that was the color that I originally ordered. I didn't want it. They sent it anyway, so it's on a shelf in my basement.

We were very happy with the awning. We use it. It does what we wanted it to do. But they were some of the most frustrating people to deal with that I have ever met in my life. And when I tried to call the company headquarters, they shoved me off to customer service again. A bunch of people that I had already talked to and didn't want to talk to again, because every time I talked to them, my blood pressure went up. They need to do something about their customer service.

I tried to discuss with Katie, the dealer-distributor, compensation and she said she would give us $300 off. There was never any extra for customer frustration. I suggested a pro bar, which goes on the end of the awning and you can manually crank up and down a shade. It was about $1,500, and she rejected my idea. Jamie, the rep working in the office, was fantastic. But her hands were tied. After about six or seven trips, the reps finally got everything right. It took about three months, but the subcontractor did the job to the best of their ability. These people and Jamie worked their butts off trying to get customer satisfaction. And once they corrected everything, the awning now works fantastic.

SunSetter sent me a shade, but I don't hold the pro bar with it. I even suggested to Katie that we make a deal at a discount for a pro bar but she said no. I realized that for a product, like any business, it's dollar and cents. But as compensation, she could have discounted a pro bar and had somebody come down here to install that. But the awning is beautiful. SunSetter does put out a good product. The price could be less but I understand that I'm buying a very high-name-brand awning. It’s like a comparison of a Cadillac to a Ford or Chevy. You are paying for the name and quality. We put on a SunSetter awning because we just reinstalled a new composite deck. In the advertisement, SunSetter says it lowers the temperature with the awning out. And it does.