Shade, on the conservatory roof, at long last.

We have a south facing conservatory, which is fantastic on the days when the sun is shining and it is very cold outside.   But on the days when it is hot, the room is unbearable.    When we first built the conservatory, in 1994, there was an enornmous chestnut tree, on the boundary, in our upper garden, which shaded the conservatory during the summer time.   Sadly, our then new neighbours and the people upstairs did not like the tree, so we were forced to agree to share the costs and have the tree cut down.

Since then, we have tried to find ways of keeping the conservatory cool during summer, such as umbrellas, awnings, shade cloth looped up inside, shade cloth on the doors, but nothing really worked well.   Internal blinds were too expensive and probably would not work, and the only shade cloth available here was very cheap, and of an inferior quality.  This is not Australia.

Recently I discovered a company, www.koalashade.co.uk, who imports tough knitted polymer cloth from India, and make shade covers to fit conservatories.  Not cheap, as the cost of ours has come to £220, but perfect for the roof of the conservatory.   Tough, efficient and long lasting.

First of all, the roof needed to be washed, luckily the sun was shining, otherwise it would be a very cold job.   I still needed to wear a coat though.   We have a trestle type ladder arrangement, which made the job easy, even for people, like me, who hate heights.

One job always leads to another job, so together we washed all the windows too, badly needed after a winter of grime.   Walter testing his window washing skills on the conservatory windows.  We certainly did a better job then the window cleaners we used to employ, who seemed to just move the dirt around.    A real waste of money.

The shade cloth was easy to put on the roof, only took a few minutes, although we did put it on back to front, so had to unhook it and turn it around.

All in place, except for minor adjustments, through not reading the instructions properly.  The two extra tensioning attatchments are currently on the front of the conservatory instead of on the middle of each end.   Note the puckering on the back right hand corner, and the white beam showing.   The front hooks only need a cord on each one, just to hold the cloth down.   A small job for tomorrow.

The before,

and after views through the roof.   What a difference it makes, and it is only early Spring.

Looking forward to a pleasant spring and summer in the conservatory.   A job well done.