Guide
Specifying screens for architects and builders
If you are designing or building the structure, the decisions that matter happen long before the screen is ordered. Cavity, substrate, fastener schedule, and what to put on the drawing.
The decision that cannot be retrofitted
A concealed screen has to be designed in. SunPro's recessed installation drawing set covers housings hidden in a ceiling cavity and tracks concealed within columns, with bottom or side access panels so the roll tube and motor stay serviceable. Every one of those is a decision made at framing, not at fit-out.
If a screen is even a possibility on a project, the cheapest version of that possibility is a cavity that exists and a power supply that arrives at the right end of it.
SunPro Recessed Installation drawings, sheets A-01 to A-05, drawn 2-25-20, issued May 2023.
Housing size drives the cavity
SunPro's header installation set pairs a 5 1/2 in standard housing with roughly 15 ft of width and 11 ft of height, and a 7 in alternative housing with roughly 30 ft of width and 12 ft of height. Published weights are around 2 lb per foot for the standard housing and around 4.25 lb per foot for the alternative.
Roll tubes are documented in 4 in standard and 5 1/2 in optional centre-core sizes. Detail scales on the drawing set run at 3 in = 1 ft-0 in, 6 in = 1 ft-0 in and 3/4 in = 1 ft-0 in.
The practical consequence: cavity depth is a function of span. Fix the span early, or provide for the larger housing.
Housing and roll-tube sizes, weights and drawing scales are SunPro's, from the Header Installation drawing set (sheets A-01 to A-04, dated 12-5-19) and its component schedule.
Fasteners are scheduled by substrate
SunPro publishes a fastener schedule covering four product families against four substrates, each with a specified diameter, material, embedment depth and minimum edge distance. Hurricane screens into concrete and awnings into concrete are different specifications, with different anchors.
Two figures to design around: SunPro's installation instructions require at least 1.5 in of embedment into the substrate, and the schedule sets minimum edge distances that a slim fascia or a narrow column face may simply not offer.
SunPro's own caveat applies — the listed fasteners are examples of quality items, not the only acceptable options. Where a substrate is unusual, engineer it rather than substitute by eye.
SunPro Best-In-Use Fastener Guide, bulletin TR-R-002r0, and the pre-installation checklists in SunPro's Inside and Outside Mount instructions.
What we need from you
Three things move a specification conversation faster than anything else.
- Clear opening dimensions, and what the header is made of.
- Available depth behind the header face and above the opening — this decides whether concealment is possible at all.
- Where power arrives, and at which end of the opening.
Drawings
SunPro publishes CAD for the header and recessed installation details in AutoCAD format, in inches. If you are drawing a recess, work from the current set for the housing you are specifying rather than from a general arrangement — the access-panel and column-connection details are the parts that get built wrong when they are inferred.
Call us at (571) 366-7862 and tell us it is a specification question. That routes the conversation differently than a homeowner inquiry.
Where this comes from
SunPro Header Installation drawings (A-01 to A-04, 12-5-19); SunPro Recessed Installation drawings (A-01 to A-05, May 2023); SunPro Best-In-Use Fastener Guide (TR-R-002r0); SunPro CAD file set (AutoCAD, units inches)
Published by SunPro Motorized Awnings & Screens.
All dimensions, weights, schedules and drawing references are SunPro's published engineering data. Verify against the current issue of SunPro's drawings before building to them — the sets cited here were captured in 2024.
Products this applies to
Questions this did not answer?
Every project starts with a real measurement and a real conversation. Nothing gets built off a web page.
Call (571) 366-7862