A galvanised steel frame over the terrace, the front door or the car, with the roof you want on top: solid, glass, fixed slats, or blades that turn when the sun moves. Two posts if it hangs off the house, four if it stands alone.
Designed for the snow load of your own postcode, and the figure goes on the drawing
The one in August when you eat outside at four and the sun has come round the corner of the house. Set your terrace below and the bar shows you every half hour of that day, before anybody builds anything.
Worked out for a plot at about 48 degrees north, the middle of the countries we build in, and for solar time, so your clock may be an hour or so off it in summer. Your own latitude moves the numbers a little. The table is taken as sitting two metres out and in the middle.
People spend weeks on this and it comes down to two questions: do you want to sit out in the rain, and do you want the winter sun to reach the kitchen window behind you.
| What it does | Solidsheet or sandwich panel | Glasslaminated safety glass | Fixed slatsa pergola, properly | Blades that turna louvre roof |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keeps the rain off | Yes | Yes | No | Yes, closed |
| Shade in summer | Full | Almost none | Dappled | Full, or none |
| Light to the room behind | Takes it away | Keeps it | Most of it | You decide |
| In winter | Dark and dry | Bright, needs cleaning | Snow drops through | Open the blades, get the low sun |
| What it costs you | The least | More, and it shows every raindrop | Little more than solid | The most, by a good margin |
| Best when | You want a dry outdoor room and the kitchen already has light | The terrace is on the dark side of the house | You only sit out in summer and a shower does not bother you | You use the terrace from March to November and want one answer to everything |
Every one of them sits on the same galvanised frame, so you can change your mind about the top later without touching the posts.
The big one. Six metres of clear beam so no post lands in the middle of the table, and the shade worked out for the hours you actually sit there. Side screens and lighting go on the same frame later if you want them.
Small, and it earns its keep every day. Somewhere to find the keys out of the rain, and it keeps the weather off the door itself, which is what actually ruins a door. Most of these need only a notification, not a permit.
The same frame as our carports, in a lighter section when it only has to cover one car. No walls, no door, and in most places no permit under twenty five square metres. If you later want it closed in, the frame takes cladding without being rebuilt.
Which way it faces, what time of day you use it, how thick the existing slab is and whether the wall can take the fixing. Ten minutes on site answers questions that a photograph cannot.
A drawing with the post positions, the snow and wind figures for your postcode, and a fixed price. If a notification or a permit is needed we say so here.
Chemical anchors into the slab if it is thick enough, four small pad footings if it is not. They have to cure, and that is the only real waiting in the job.
Posts, beams, roof, then the gutter and the lighting if you ordered them. We leave with the terrace swept and the blades working.
In most of the countries we build in, a canopy that stays under about twenty five square metres, is open on the sides and keeps its distance from the boundary needs only a notification. Once it is closed in with glass on the sides it starts to count as floor area and a permit is usually needed. We tell you which one yours is at the survey, before you order anything.
The frame is designed for the snow load of your own postcode, which in the mountains can be three times what it is in the valley an hour away. That figure goes on the drawing, so you can see what it was designed for rather than take our word for it.
Either. Fixed to the wall it needs two posts instead of four and reads as part of the house. Free standing it touches nothing, which is the safer choice on an insulated facade, on a rented property, or where the wall is old and nobody is sure what is behind the render.
Yes. Fixed slats give shade, not shelter, and a summer shower will come through. A louvre roof closes its blades and sheds the water into the beam and down a post. If you want to sit out in the rain, pick glass or the louvre roof and do not let anybody tell you a pergola will do.
A canopy is light but it catches wind like a sail, and that is what lifts the cheap ones off a terrace. The holding down is calculated for your site, not guessed, and the anchors or footings are sized from that number.
Yes, and that is the point of doing the frame properly. Glass side panels, a fabric screen on a track, strip lighting in the beam and a socket in a post all bolt onto what is already there. Nothing has to be taken down to add them.
One picture from the garden, and which way it faces. That is enough for us to come back with a drawing, the snow figure for your postcode and a fixed price.
Modularne kuće s čeličnom konstrukcijom, građene u hali i isporučene širom srednje Evrope.
