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RENDITIONS OF THE GAZEBACLES |
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Where's the other half ?
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Did the contractor run out of time here or the customer out of money? Or did half of it go off as a kite like one this will? Do these names mean anything to anyone in North Texas: Chantal, Arlene, Dean and Della ? For the rest of you, these were hurricanes through there in the last decade. And lately, Katrina. So this is where those triangular UFO's are coming from! |
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Ring Around the Rosy How do you like those sagging ropes for lateral stability? And the lack of any cross-bracing altogether? Rope a post; pull a rope. |
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This one by the same builder has circular post-to-post cross-bracing but no lateral-bracing. Those posts are merely set into ground anchors about a foot deep. Once the wind gets to this structure during rain it will twist in a spiral fashion and collapse. See the single rope halfway to the top threaded through the radial rafters? That's for fill-in, I guess. |
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How about that rope-net canopy? This time the same builder has introduced both cross-bracing and lateral bracing. Hey, the guy's progressing. But the canopy is so frail that any tubby kid in the neighborhood would collapse this thing in 2 minutes. I wonder if this builder has a side job at a circus. |
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Where the flock are we here?
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Pyramid of Rays Here's a square gazebo with radial lathing. From below this style of gazebo looks like a spider web. Radial lath on a rectangular configuration is an architectural contradiction: radial lath belongs on a circular structure, not a rectangular one. Only recourse now is to bury it in climbing vines. I recall that the Pyramids were built for burials. |
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This stuff is
coming in from Australia.
And it deserves to stay
over there. Those gazebos will never fly in California |
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Jellyfish on a hexagon Canopy's totally out of character
here. It's clear If you were getting married, would you pose for a wedding photograph here? If so, it might be you who gets hexed: the bride turns into Medusa and the groom turns into stone. As it is, it looks like that already happened at least once before (lower left in doorway). Greek Mythology: As punishment, Medusa was made ugly with hair of snakes. One look would turn a man to stone.Gives a whole new meaning to screw-off top. |
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Vanilla? This is an all-vinyl gazebo. These kinds of gazebos are prefabricated, dinky and cheap. It's all straight stuff. They can be erected by the least talented among us with a screw-driver, so just about anybody can do it. To me it looks like a White-Tower ice-cream booth at the county fair. Mass-market but not class-market. Yuk! |
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Affordable housing in California "Granny unit has a designer stove for cooking
and heating, seats that instantly convert to bunks, and an imposing relocatable dining table that can be folded up and put out of sight. The
compact combo bathtub-commode unit is easily tucked away out of sight. Beautiful open
rafter ceilings.
Built with sun-worshipers and star-gazers in mind. Priced for quick sale and occupancy. HUD
will finance. $165,700 with only $20,000 down." |
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Here's the problem that is
evident by the 2x4s bracing the rear left side while it was being built:
The canopy is too heavy to be supported by the post-columns arrangement
that was used. These columns are 10-inches in diameter at the base and have been slipped over mere 4x4 posts. The columns are too narrow at the neck for anything larger. † The posts were already planted in the ground with some post-base concrete thrown into the holes to stiffen them up. But the depth was no more than 3 feet deep and at best was maybe a foot in diameter which most likely narrowed to 8 inches at the bottom of the holes. When the ground got wet, these posts all started leaning in either a clockwise or counter-clockwise fashion. Even the concrete bases started to tilt. † Never use tapered columns on a closed-canopy structure -- always use uniformly straight ones with a capital no smaller in diameter than the base. That means using split concrete precast columns. |
This time we're not just crying "wolf".
The sky really is falling! Once this process starts, the canopy starts to spiral downward. This problem can never be permanently corrected once it starts, and that's usually during a long rainy season when it's already impossible to deal with. The only proper approach is to do it right in the first place. That involves using 14 ft long pressure-treated 6x6s each sunk into the ground 6 feet deep in an 18-inch diameter hole and back-filling with regular wet ready-mix cement to within 6 inches of the surface. Now you know why a finished gazebo photo was not provided on the builder's website -- it most likely collapsed before the builder could finish it. Never accept an incomplete job as proof of a builder's experience. This is a con job exposed.
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Yep, it's up there. Here's one of those Alumina-wood arbors. The material is grain-embossed powder-coated aluminum sheet-metal folded into hollow boards and stuffed with Styrofoam to keep the hollow lumber from buckling under stress. Eventhough there are 176 triangles formed by the lathwork in the canopy, this material is so weak that a central cross-beam and a vertical stub-post was needed to support the canopy at midpoint so the weight of the canopy wouldn't push out the centers of peripheral beams. With 176 triangles, any canopy of similar size and design made from cedar or even hollow plastic PVC would be robustly rigid without any interior support whatsoever. Better to err on the side
of caution -- |
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California's coastline border is awash! Is there really a name for this
kind of canopy in residential backyard California? Brought in by a Marshall Islands illegal who used it to get here. |
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that two designers were involved: one saw things hexagonally and the other
saw things organically.
