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neb

neb

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#279736 4-Nov-2020 15:37
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The deck in front of the living room currently has a continuation of the corrugated-iron house roof over it. The underside is clad in white fibrolite which reflects a fair bit of light into the room compared to straight iron, as we discovered when we started to strip it off. The builder has suggested adding one or more transparent/translucent panels to let more light in, but I'd prefer to avoid the corrugated-polycarbonate-nailed-onto-a-wood-frame look for something that's in view all the time. Alternatives are flat panels like ClearVue or Crystalite, but I'm wondering what I'm getting into with this, both in terms of UV-survivability and installation. In terms of lifetime, both claim a 15-year replacement warranty while polycarbonate seems to be 20+ years light transmission (beyond normal wear and tear) and 10-15 years breakage. The other thing is installation, I'm assuming the panels will require a bit more than just screw-them-down like polycarbonate, possibly a plan change, and I don't know how weathertight they are, and remain, over time. Oh, and a final thing, a solid block of panels in the centre of the roof, or alternating long-run steel and panels across the length of the roof? The windows run the full length of the roof so it's not a case of positioning them in a particular spot, but I'm wondering if there's any benefits/downsides to uniformly-distributed or all the light towards the centre. Any experiences/opinions?


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neb

neb

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  #2597877 4-Nov-2020 21:44
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Another option is a louvre roof, which deals with the problem of clear panels being too hot/bright in the summer but an opaque roof being too dark/cold in the winter, so for at least half the year it's the wrong solution. However I've heard varying things about the weathertightness of these things so if anyone has any thoughts/experience with these I'd be interested to hear it.

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