Synseal conservatories can withstand 160mph wind speeds and 9ft snow loading and this video shows the testing procedure.
A Synseal conservatory from a Conservatory Outlet dealer is designed to cope with the extremes of the British weather. The following video shows recent tests which were performed on the conservatory roof system:
Conservatory Roof Video
This is what Synseal had to say:
14 January 2008 Synseal took its conservatory roof to be tested. The Synseal roof system has BBA approval but with so many changes in the UK’s weather we wanted to make sure it could stand up to the most extreme conditions. Plus we wanted to put to rest some outrageous and desperate competitor claims.
British weather has become more unpredictable than ever. Torrential rain followed by drought; hail storms in July; and tornadoes in Birmingham. This year we’ve seen a month’s rainfall in just two days, high winds and even snow. Ironically testing almost had to be postponed because of bad weather.
Synseal has all the accreditations and standards available on its conservatory roofs. Extreme weather doesn’t follow rules. We wanted to put our conservatory roof through the worst conditions of wind and snow.
But we had some strict rules for ourselves.
We had only one shot. It had to be a standard roof, no different to what we would sell every day. It had to be installed as we recommend; no extra bolts and braces. And, most importantly no tweaking or retesting. When conservatories are installed you have to ensure that the recommendations are adequate. After all that’s how they are installed in the real world. In the real world you don’t pop back and make good in between hurricanes!
The engineers at Wintech were brilliant. They specialise in curtain walling and have some impressive projects under their belt including Canary Wharf, the Houses of Parliament and Arsenal football stadium. And they’ve tested conservatory roofs before.
Wintech explained what would happen and all the possible outcomes. We knew we wanted to take the roof to its extremes. Aiming a DC6 engine at the roof was a good way to find out how it would stand up to strong winds.
The DC6 engine creates the equivalent of 90 mile an hour winds and by adding negative pressure this speed can continue to rise. This test has already been performed on some conservatory roofs and the best previous result was 135 miles an hour.
The engine was fired up. Apart from the guttering that was shaking under the winds the roof stood strong. The roof went passed 90 miles an hour, then 100 and it kept going up. It sailed passed the recorded highest rate of a competitor roof at 135 miles. And it was still in working order at 160 miles an hour. Eventually at 165 mph one sheet of polycarbonate came loose. Impressive when you consider that the New Orleans disaster peeked at 115mph.
The test centre told us we could probably go even higher with a few modifications, but we declined. Any modifications made would not be the way we recommend our conservatory roof to be installed. It’s important that the roof we tested was built to our standard recommendations.
Also we wanted to perform the snow load test. This test was performed on the SAME roof that has just been tested in extreme winds.
Rather than load the roof with weights, the downward pressure is created by sucking the air from the conservatory. The advantage of testing this way is that not only does it apply dead weight to the roof; it guarantees that all the seals remain intact during the test too. If the seals lose their integrity the test has to stop because the pressure cannot be increased.
It’s fantastic to witness. You can hear the glass and frames creaking under the pressure and move over six inches but despite this the frames and roof stayed intact - through to snow loads of an incredible nine feet.
We put our roof through the 160 mile an hour winds and then subjected it to nine feet of snow. It already had all the accreditations on the market and the roof has been tried and tested in the field for over five years. The ease of installation makes it the most popular roof in the UK. In fact one out of every four conservatories in Britain is installed with a Synseal roof. We also wanted to show exactly what a Synseal conservatory can withstand without any extra bolts or braces — exactly as we recommend it’s installed. We weren’t surprised it surpassed the best result from any other conservatory tested… but we expect our competitors will be.
