Conservatory Roof

Like a lot of other things on our project, the conservatory roof has been a source of great delays and problems. The two brothers that we have employed to do this for us arrived 2 weeks ago this Tuesday, intending to strip the roof in readiness for an afternoon delivery of the components for the new roof. However, they took a call mid-morning to say it was not ready and would not be coming.

It was promised for a later day, but when that day came, it transpired that the framework was available, but "when we came to load the lorry, we discovered the glass panels were missing".

A few more days later, apparently everything was available, but they had no delivery lorries available (a driver walked away from his job, apparently).

In desperation, the brothers took their pick-up and collected the frame parts, and were promised the glass a couple of days later.

The glass finally arrived last Friday, but only 3 of the 4 panels. The fourth one was destroyed by the fork-lift truck !

We currently have a conservatory with half a roof. Here are some pictures of how it has come about . The first, shows the old frame partially stripped, with the roof panels removed (gone to make a roof over a pheasant-house, apparently) :

Note the very shallow slope down to the front. These triangular side pieces are simply attached atop of a regular square and level set of conservatory sides. The new side panels simply (?) attach in their place :

Unfortunately, the verticals, horizontals, measurement, or manufacturing wasn't quite right and this left hand panel has had to be let into the wall by a few millimeters. Not really a problem unless this conservatory is ever removed, in which case a groove in the stonework will need to be filled, or hidden in some way.

The new frame basically comprises extruded aluminium beams to which the UPVC facings are attached :

On the wall-side, another aluminium spar is bolted to the wall through some aluminium spacers :

A UPVC section clips on top of this, to overlap the glass, and a lead flashing ties it all into the stonework.

On Friday, the first two glass panels were fitted, and the flashings done.

For some reasons, these types of roof always have a mismatch in roof panel sizes. The outer two are always slightly narrower than the inner two. This is why we only have two fitted, and one sat in our old sitting room. The one we have has to be the last to be fitted, otherwise you can't get access to the roof bars to knock on the cover plates.

The final glass panel has been promised for this week. The same has been said about our 3 pairs of French Doors which have also been promised, but not materialised several times.