Gazebo Screen & Clear Vinyl in Ville-Marie

Gazebos in Ville-Marie

Ville-Marie is a downtown of condo and apartment towers, so the gazebo is not in a yard: it is on a roof. Condo towers and apartment buildings have shared rooftop decks and private terraces up in the storeys, where you find pergolas dressed with panels and small store-bought gazebos anchored into the deck. Up there the wind rules: it climbs the façades, wraps around the corners of the towers and drives in under gazebo roofs. Panels travel up and down in the elevator, and every job is coordinated with building management before a single panel is unclipped. These structures are light by necessity, and so are their panels.

In Centre-Sud and the Village, the older half of Ville-Marie, the brick duplexes and triplexes with outside staircases have small backyards and a balcony on every floor. The gazebo there is a small store-bought model set at the back of the yard, sometimes between two spiral staircases, or a balcony pergola closed in with light panels. Sheds and neighbouring walls cut the wind but hold the heat: those mineral yards bake all summer, and clear vinyl left up in them yellows fast on the sunny side while the shaded side stays clear. The contrast shows from one pane to the next on the very same gazebo.

Screens and vinyl: what gives out in Ville-Marie

On the roofs, clear vinyl (MICA film) does not last long: it slaps at every gust, stiffens at the first frost and splits along the frame. The screen on the big pergola panels slackens, then the spline lifts out of its groove on one side and the panel whistles. In the Centre-Sud yards the wear is slower but dirtier: vinyl yellowed in stripes, screen torn at the corner that meets the staircase or the walkway. Up on a terrace the pane is measured where it comes off and the panel never leaves the deck: the vinyl is trimmed on the spot, the mesh brought back to tension in its frame, and nothing rides the elevator down before it goes back up. The structure — anchored to the roof deck or standing in the yard — does not move.

Structure and access in Ville-Marie

Up high, everything goes through the service elevator and the syndicate’s say-so; a pergola panel is rebuilt flat on the terrace itself, one at a time, and a panel the wind could lift is never left without a hand on it. In the plexes the way to the yard is the outside spiral staircase — where a two-metre panel will not fit — or the lane. On a balcony pergola the panels are small and get rebuilt on the spot, on the balcony floor. Store-bought gazebo or wood structure, only the panels are handled, never the anchors or the framing.

Wind, sun, insects: choosing in Ville-Marie

Wind first, up high: vinyl pulled tight in a straight frame, and aluminum mesh on exposed screen panels, because fibreglass bellies and slackens in wind climbing a tower. Sun next, down in the yards: the downtown heat island yellows and stiffens vinyl left up all summer. On a gazebo panel it is area, not weave, that decides: a whole opening lets in at once what a window lets through in fits, and well-tensioned standard fibreglass is enough there as long as the spline holds on all four sides.