Best roof glass for conservatory

cyclonebri1

Rhino666 wrote: »

Polycarbonate would cost a fraction of this, perhaps a third and could be fitted with a lower spec roof. Be careful here though as a major consideration has to be snow weight - not what you think about at this time of year:-)
.

Snow load is an interesting 1, and the reason I mentioned loading earlier, but get this.

I'm a retired engineer, I like to see how things have been designed and built before I buy.
When I was researching DIY conservatories, (went with Centurian by the way), I looked at the video that Synseal had put up in defence of the roof capabilities. Now this is true for the benefit of anyone who understands structures.

Their snow load test was to apply vacuum to the inside of the whole conservatory, can't recall how they arrived at their figures but they said it would withstand an almighty depth of snow, more than we would ever have.

Now it's fine to create a force that is holding the sides in, but that doesn't happen under load conditions, there is no restraining counter force (vacuum). If the roof gets loaded the force, especially if it's a hip or double hip roof, is outwards. IE the roof goes down and the sides go out. :eek::eek:

Total garbage

cyclonebri1

1080, we wanted to reduce the heat created in high summer, hence we went with opaque poly. The other point being that the build was speced and offered with a glass roof, this we can always replace at a later date, this was the point I was trying to make cvlear in my 1st post, the structure has to be correct regardless.

ytfcmad

Lots of questions!
1) Nothing wrong with the Blue glass, its just a tint, you can also get Green, Grey and Bronze. It was more expensive years ago versus the others but the price has reduced dramatically over the last 10 years.
2) "Sandbanks" funnily enough i speced/sold a lot of the Blue glass you see there, It's UK's Miami so no surprise really.
3) Cool-Lite price V Active Blue? Should only be a fraction more but depends on where your installer buy's from.
4) Polycarb!!! should only be a last resort, discolors and the sound you get from the slightest rain is deafening. The glass types that are available today were not around in the 80's/90's and costs were high hence it's foothold in the market place.
5) Self Cleaning? Each to your own, its glass with a soft coat, go careful when cleaning as you can take the coating off and you should never let it come into contact with Silicons.
6) Not sure about costs now as not directly working with glass these days but this still applies, Float glass is cheapest, then Toughened then Laminated, a DGU is more expensive the more coatings you have on the glass and shapes (Triangles etc) can be twice the normal price.

That said a combination of Document L changes and cheap finance has meant that the costs of coated glass, Argon fillings, warm edge spacer etc have come down as sales volumes rocketed.

nobulljusttruth

Don't....... use black or bronze tinted as the average temperature in a glass roof one is around 100 degrees in the summer, then you will be paying £5k for roof blinds, but even they will not stop the heat getting in. Whole nest of bees.............. South facing conservatory...... great for tomato growing

cyclonebri1

nobulljusttruth wrote: »

Don't....... use black or bronze tinted as the average temperature in a glass roof one is around 100 degrees in the summer, then you will be paying £5k for roof blinds, but even they will not stop the heat getting in. Whole nest of bees.............. South facing conservatory...... great for tomato growing

There's your issue, what's your solution??????????