Gazebo Screen & Clear Vinyl in Verdun

Gazebos in Verdun

Verdun runs in long streets of brick duplexes and triplexes built between 1910 and 1940, where the backyard is narrow, long, hemmed in by fences and sheds, and the interior staircase means the way to that yard runs through the ground-floor unit or along the lane. What fits in a yard like that is a small store-bought gazebo, or a pergola closed in with panels cut opening by opening when the yard is too irregular for anything from a box — the width of the lot decides before the owner does. Its panels come apart and get handled in a space where every metre counts, between the neighbour’s fence and the shed wall.

L’Île-des-Sœurs offers the other extreme: high-rises and recent condos, with ground-level terraces, shared rooftop decks and deep balconies. A gazebo up high is rare, but the panel-dressed pergola and the small terrace gazebo do exist, and their panels ride down and up in the elevator. An island is surrounded by water: the wind comes at it from every side, and it works the clear vinyl and the screens far harder than at the bottom of a plex yard sheltered by three brick walls. A rooftop pergola there takes the wind off the river with not a single hedge to break the gust before it reaches the panels.

Screens and vinyl: what gives out in Verdun

On a small store-bought gazebo wedged into a plex yard, the panels on the walkway side are the ones that suffer: brushed in passing, shoved by a bin or a bicycle, they end up with the mesh popped at the corner and the spline out. The clear vinyl (MICA film), where it is fitted, yellows on the side that catches sun over the sheds and splits in the cold. On the island, wind slackens the screen on the big panels and slaps the vinyl until it tears. In both cases we redo the vinyl pane by pane, cut to the exact size and fitted into the original frame, and rescreen the mesh in its frame with new spline. A warped frame is straightened first. The structure stays in place.

Structure and access in Verdun

In a plex with an interior staircase the question is the route: a store-bought gazebo panel is often more than two metres long and will not turn in a narrow stairwell; it goes out by the lane, and gets rebuilt flat in the yard itself when there is a level corner. In a condo on L’Île-des-Sœurs, building management is told ahead, the service elevator is used, and the work is done flat on the terrace; rooftop pergola panels are rebuilt one at a time and never left unheld in a strong wind. Store-bought or wood, the structure is never taken down: only the panels move.

Wind, sun, insects: choosing in Verdun

Two climates in one borough: Verdun holds both the enclosed plex yards and the waterfront of L’Île-des-Sœurs. At the bottom of a plex yard, brick and fences cut the wind but trap the heat; the sun, when it gets between the buildings, yellows the vinyl in stripes. Insects come from the lanes and planted yards: standard fibreglass does the job, and pet-resistant mesh makes sense where a cat lives in the yard. On L’Île-des-Sœurs the water all around sends a constant wind: vinyl pulled tight in a straight frame, aluminum mesh on exposed panels, and a tight weave if waterside insects make themselves felt in the evening.