My Prefix Verandah In The Summer

If you followed my mini-series charting the progress of my own home improvement project at the end of last year you will know I had a Prefix glazed Verandah installed on the back of my house in the garden. If not, you can catch up on that series of posts here:

I also said that once the weather gets better and we can actually use it for what it was intended for, I would give another review. Up to now my thoughts have been based on the aesthetics of the product and the ease of fitting.

Well, as we all know we have had some pretty decent weather of late, and I have been making proper use of my Verandah. So now I feel I can give my thoughts on this product a bit more of a rounded outing.

Superb in the sun

I will be honest and say that I did wonder how well the Verandah would do in the sun. It gets hit with it first thing in the morning up until around 1pm where the end of my garden then gets it until the end of the evening. That still a fair few hours of sun, and with my garden being enclosed from both sides, I was wondering whether or not it would be a bit of a heat trap.

Turns out it deals with the sun pretty well. I was sat outside, underneath the Verandah at 10am last Saturday morning enjoying breakfast and in no way was I uncomfortable, too warm or blinded by the sun. There was enough room for a breeze to circulate. It was thoroughly pleasant!

Over the past couple of weekends we have had family and friends round for BBQs, drinks and general chin wagging while the weather has been good. It can sometimes feel cliched to say that these things give you that outdoors feel whilst being somewhat “inside” or undercover. But they genuinely do. My own Verandah stretches beyond 3.5m deep if my memory serves me well, and is the full width of the back of my house, so it provides plenty of canopy in which to sit under. You can check out some of my finished images via the posts above.

Even when it rains but remains warm enough this thing performs well. Speaking of rain, we haven’t really had much of it in the past few weeks at all. It won’t be long before droughts are declared I bet! But the glass roof needs rain to be able to clean itself. It is self-cleaning glass, but I think we all know that the performance of self-cleaning glass can be patchy at best. The theory is the coating on the glass breaks down the dirt, and then the rain should find it easy to splash the dirt away. Well, the sun has been doing it’s bit for a fair old while now. And what rain we have had hasn’t been anywhere near heavy enough to make a difference round these parts. So the only thing I will say is that if you’re going for a glazed version of a Verandah, and we have a dry spell, be prepared for it to look dirty unless you can be bothered to stick a hosepipe on it.

Very good alternative

This thing is solid. The posts sit on pad stones underneath my Indian stone patio. The supports hidden inside the posts sit on the pad stones, and the decorative feet sit over the top so you don’t see any of it. This was finished just before Christmas so it has had the best of the Winter thrown at it for good measure and it has remained solid.

I was a bit of a guinea pig for the Verandah. We had only just decided to start selling it as I planned on putting mine up. I first saw it at the 2016 FIT Show, just as I was planning to put a brand new glazed extension on the back. However, I saw this on the Prefix stand and it got my attention.

At the time, our old knackered existing conservatory become a dumping room for all the crap we couldn’t be bothered moving or didn’t want in the house. My fear was that a new one could end up being used in the same way. A Verandah however meant cover overhead, but not an enclosed space, so wouldn’t tempt us into dumping things out there. Plus, there’s only two of us in a three bedroom house we hardly live in because we’re mostly at work, at the gym, or out eating and drinking. Did we really need another room?

In the end we were both glad we changed our minds about our back garden. We have added turf, an Indian stone patio, a Verandah and tarted up the back wall underneath. It has vastly improved the back of our house and it’s become a place we’re happy to invite people round to be in.

And this is the point. Outdoor living products like the Prefix Verandah can be a happy alternative option for some people. Those who are unsure as to whether they want or need a new glazed extension. Those who perhaps don’t have such a massive budget but could have one of these and still create a wow factor.

They genuinely are a nice place to be under. It doesn’t even have to be all that warm or in glorious sunshine. So long as it’s dry outside these are peaceful, relaxing and just generally nice places to be. You get the outdoors whilst being protected overhead.

At this year’s FIT Show I saw that Prefix were experimenting with different decorative brackets and a thinner eaves beam. There is going to be more variety to this product in the coming weeks and months, and outdoor living products like this should be something installers are considering adding to their product portfolios.

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