Do’s & Dont’s Of Veranda Design

Full Video Transcript: Do’s and don’ts of designing a veranda.

Look, my view is you’ve got to build to the area that you are in. And it all depends on the house you are attaching to; if you are attaching to the house. And you can’t do any design on any house because all houses are different.

That is a good point.

You can’t read a catalogue and you try to morph whatever is in there unto your house. Chances are it is not going to work. So it is the recommendation of the company that you take the opportunity to talk to one of the design consultants. Collectively we have had more than 40 years experience in this, so it is not like we don’t workshop these things through.

So it is not just that. Sometimes you’ve got, you know plan A, plan B, plan C. And you know perhaps the client’s budget comes into what we are doing.

What I like to guide person’s on is how much light they want onto their home, how much heat gets in there. And I think an important factor is the height of the veranda.

That is a good point. The higher they get, the more wind they suck in.

And if I could say just Rocky, sometimes if your veranda is too high it has an inhuman aspect to it. Like we are moving to a large cathedral and the roof is right up there you are just not feeling comfortable. It doesn’t feel like you are in a room.

I think the big note too is not building within permit requirements. Because all of a sudden you are doing what could be a simple structure, but a small adjustment here or there will soon make it a very clean process when doing permits. Otherwise it could just drag out forever and a day. A lot of money can be spent for very low gain.

Good point.

I’m glad you said that. A lot of people don’t understand that. To me what a lot of people are worried about the light and I think if you design something without taking into account each person’s desires it will be awful having a structure go up and they are upset about it.

It’s not about just now too; it’s also about future plans. Because if you go and put something that becomes a corner stone. And I guess if you have big elaborate plans I guess it is always important to look at the bigger picture.

Not just light, but controlling heat as well. A lot of people actually have- they get upset because it is west facing. But if you want to block out the heat a simple thing to do is most people actually put up laser light. But that could be very hot on a west facing area.

We have newer technology that we can let in light without heat, okay.

Exactly.

One thing that is probably the most problematic product in the past, weather-plast.

Definitely.

Inevitably we’d go out to a client’s house and they’d say we hate this veranda. It is just too hot. And often on the other side of it we are receiving a call from someone who wants to put in a laser light veranda.

In all but very few cases, most of the times, laser light will radiate heat.

What I don’t like about laser light is it doesn’t stay looking new for long.

Clear laser light, frosted laser light is another product.

We will always encourage, But besides that I always try and save the client money where I can. If they don’t need to spend the money, I am not going to ask them to do it.

That is a good point. A small well- planned space is far better than a big space that does nothing.

I am a strong believer in saying don’t do more than you need. Otherwise it becomes a storage area.

It should be to scale.

An elegant flat veranda will sometimes will be Gable every time.

You know simple is usually best.

Agreed.

Agreed.