Stylish Entertaining – How to Select the Best Roofing for Your Pergola
Pergolas and formal stylized outdoor entertaining areas have been a mainstream trend in building construction in Australia over the past few years. New and existing homes are adding style and ambiance to their outdoor facades so friends and family can easily entertain all year round. The traditional ‘Aussie’ barbecue has become much more sophisticated with emergence of gourmet cooking outdoors with chef like barbecue kitchens. The need for our outdoor entertaining areas to become more stylized and functional has been the result.
When planning and designing a new pergola one of the main construction considerations is selecting the type of roofing material you want for your pergola in line with your needs. There are a number of different types of roofing available including polycarbonate, colorbond steel, tiles and opening roofs.
The first point to consider when making your selection is that the more light you let in, the more heat comes in. The catch being of course, that you need more light in winter and less in summer. There are a few ways around this problem, firstly you can use a combination of polycarbonate and colorbond steel incorporating 2 or 3 sheets of polycarbonate inserts and having the rest of the pergola roof in colorbond steel. This will effectively still let the light in that you need and the pergola climate underneath will remain comfortably cool. Another alternative is to have colorbond steel on the west side of the pergola and polycarbonate sheeting on the other, if the pergola has a gable roof.
Tags: building construction, construction, cooking, design, homes