Gazebo Screen & Clear Vinyl in Dorval

Gazebos in Dorval

Dorval has two very different kinds of backyard, and therefore two kinds of gazebo. North of the railway, the post-war bungalows and cottages of the 1950s and 1960s sit on modest lots with a deck at ground level and, in many cases, a retail gazebo set near the fence: aluminum or steel frame, standard-format panels, original clear vinyl that has been through several winters. Along Lac Saint-Louis the picture changes entirely. Along Lac Saint-Louis, the resort-era houses have often had a carpenter-built wooden shelter added later, its openings cut by hand: the rails fall where the framing allowed, and two adjacent openings do not give the same figure.

That permanent structure is a different trade from the boxed gazebo. Its panels are held by wooden battens, screwed or nailed, rather than a spline in an aluminum groove; its openings follow the framing, not a catalogue; and the film is sometimes stapled on by the owner in the fall, slightly differently each year. Facing the lake, wind is in charge: film put up in a hurry snaps and tears with the first big gusts of autumn. North of the tracks, on retail gazebos, the logic is that of replacing material in a standard frame. Both are redone on site, but not the same way.

Screens and vinyl: what gives out in Dorval

On a wooden structure by the water, rescreening means lifting the battens without breaking them, stripping the worn mesh or film, stretching the new material flat across the frame and refastening clean battens — the old ones have often dried out and split at the first screwdriver. Every opening is measured on its own, because framing exposed to the lake has moved since it was built. On the retail gazebo in the north end, the motion is different: the panel comes off the structure, the yellowed film or slack mesh comes out of its groove, a new spline holds the new mesh or clear vinyl (MICA film), and the panel goes back where it was. In both cases the structure — wood or metal — is left alone.

Structure and access in Dorval

The first challenge is recognizing which family you are dealing with; the second is the ground. On the shore of Lac Saint-Louis, a permanent structure may sit at the bottom of a slope toward the water, on a wooden deck, and its panels can be tall and heavy: two people take them down, and they are redone flat in the mobile workshop parked in the driveway. On the bungalow streets north of the tracks, the yard is small and the gazebo is often pushed against the fence: you work in little space, but at grade and with no dimensional surprises.

Wind, sun, insects: choosing in Dorval

The lake does two things to a gazebo: it sends wind and it bounces light. On faces turned toward the water, the film ages faster, because it takes direct sun plus its reflection off the surface, then beats in the gusts until it splits. There, the film goes on early in the fall, pulled tight, starting with the faces that give onto the water: those split first, and doing them first avoids opening the same gazebo twice. North of the railway the same film lasts longer: the yard is small, the fence and the next house break the gust before it reaches the gazebo, and it is the sun, not the wind, that decides its age. In the enclosed yards to the north, standard fibreglass is enough.