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- Verified Buyer
This umbrella is massive! It's really hard to find a good umbrella when you want one that's more than 9'. I've tried a few and this one has been the best so far. The wood construction makes it nice and heavy, which helps with stability (even though it makes it unwieldy to move/store). I got mine in May and it has lasted through the summer so far. I've had it up in ~15-20 mph winds that would have totally destroyed one of those 3-canopy types (those things are trash). We will see if the pulley system lasts another year, but being wood and totally exposed, I am confident that I can repair it if/when it breaks (unlike metal umbrellas where the cable is run inside the tube). The ribs are starting to warp a little from repeated wet/dry cycles, but not to the point that it affects performance. It's wood, so you have to expect some dimensional instability and not let it bother you. Also, the fabric doesn't stop water at all as it is just cloth. Even a light drizzle goes right through it. This umbrella is strictly for shade. After one summer of blazing heat and sun, the cloth still looks good and hasn't noticeably faded (mine is blue).When I bought this, it was $120, now it is $142. I'd say it's still an okay value there, but the price increase and lack of color choice has prevented me from ordering a 2nd one, which I was planning to do.A few tips on ownership of this umbrella:1. Paint the bottom of the pole. The wood pole will soak up water and swell up inside of the base to the point that it's nearly impossible to get out. Once I wrestled mine out of the base and through the table (with the aid of some dish soap), I whittled the end to a gentle taper and then painted it. No problems since then.2. As others have said, the weakest link in the design is the joint where the poles screw together. I think they did a decent job with it, about the only way to really make it stronger would be to make the pole one piece (which would turn it into a freight shipment). I took a 2' long piece of 2" PVC and slid it onto the pole for extra support of this joint. It sits on top of the table and is the perfect height to support the joint without interfering with lowering the umbrella. You can easily paint the PVC so it doesn't look so bad and it will greatly reduce the chance of unexpected wind destroying the umbrella. If it breaks at that joint, it will be completely ruined.3. Use a small bungee cord to hold the umbrella closed when you lower it. There is so much fabric on this thing, that if you've lowered it due to wind, you need that cord to keep it from turning into a sail.4. This huge, 13' umbrella will handle about the same winds that most 9' umbrellas can handle, which is pretty impressive. But...if you want any umbrella to last, you need to lower it on windy days and store it for events like tropical storms. If you aren't willing to do that, you're going to be replacing ANY umbrella annually.satisfiedBought this umbrella last summer in red. We only put it out during the summer. It is kept in the pool shed during the winter months. I’ve noticed that the color is fading. We keep the umbrella closed when not in use and when it is opened you can see streaks where the sun is fading the red color. Very disappointed. We had a green one we purchased from another company for years and never had an issue with fading. According to the description material is supposed to be fade resistant but it isn’t.the joint where the 2 halves of the wooden poles meet is NOT very sturdyFirst, the bottom pole arrived slightly curved. Thus, my umbrella does not stand straight up.Second, the threaded connection between the top and bottom poles tends to unscrew as the wind blows. The causes the umbrella to become wobbly and unstable in wind. One must monitor the umbrella and repeatedly re-tighten the threaded connection.After using it 1 season l the stitches holding upper fabric to lower fabric fell apartMarket umbrellas I've had in the past have had a natural wood look. This is painted brown. And they tend to have a sturdy double rope for extending the umbrella, this has a single, thin vinyl rope. There were a ton of little loose strings that needed to be removed from the canopy.But not terrible, it looks fine. Just a step lower in initial quality feel when compared to umbrellas I've had in the past (that were also cheaper price).I bought this to replace a 9 foot backyard umbrella that had recently bent at the spot where the pole comes up through the central hole in the table. The previous umbrella was a typical 9 foot with thick canvas and had a crank to raise and lower, as well as a "tilt" feature of the pole by pressing an inset button near the top.This umbrella is different, and I believe superior in several ways. The most obvious is the pole. It is HEAVY, solid beechwood. It is a little bigger in diameter (1 7/8 vs 1.5") so I had to remove the small sleeve in the under support of my table to make this fit. The sleeve was just a thin guide to direct the pole down into the opening of the base, and was easy to remove with a hacksaw, but you might want to make sure your table and base will accept a 1 7/8 inch pole. I had the base already (from the previous umbrella) and it has a small plastic insert/reducer in the top that was made to accept the 1.5" pole. It easily slipped out to accept the larger diameter. The previous umbrella has the typical hollow metal pole. It seemed sturdy, but a strong wind storm caught the fabric and bent the pole. Once there is even a small bend in a hollow pole, the strength is greatly diminished, and it bent 90 degrees in the storm. This solid wood pole isn't going anywhere! The fabric would be torn off the canopy first.The canopy is beautiful and adds color to the backyard. There is no crank and it must be raised by hand, assisted by pulling down on a thick rope through pulleys. This is not difficult and could be done even by my 12-year old son. The simple, sturdy pulley mechanism is just one less area to break, as I have had 2 other umbrellas that broke the internal cord that is attached to the crank. I actually spent about 2 hours opening up the pole and fishing out the cord to fix this, only to have it fail again a couple weeks later. This external, thick rope/pulley design seems much stronger and easier to fix should the need arise.There is also no "tilt" mechanism built into the pole, but again, I think this eliminates an area of weakness. On the previous umbrella, the tilt button became locked in the inset position from some internal freezing up of its mechanism, and the top could tilt back and forth, but could no longer be locked into the upright, untilted position. We had to leave it with the top tilted at a 30 degree angle. Without the tilt, there may be some areas of sun that are not blocked, but the larger 13' canopy makes up much of the difference.Since I just put this up, I will have to see how the fabric and wood holds up, but so far I think this will be a great improvement over the design of the typical umbrella found at the big box stores.Unfortunately for the cost of this umbrella the material is a very thin almost nylon material. There is already stress areas, will not last as long as it should had it been made of a light weight canvas or other sturdier material. Also where the spokes are attached should have been reinforced. It looks great and the size is perfect, but I fear won’t last long. I hindsight too much money for how it’s madeDelver was fast and product was as expected
