Brise soleils or balconies

[Furnace]

Opinions sought on practicality, cost, aesthetic of the alternatives shown below.

My partner is rather taken by the idea of balconies, whereas I'm unconvinced - I see another area to clean, and one that won't be used. However, the views are to the south and having full height sliding doors in the bedroom (LHS) and upstairs sitting room seems a nice to have. Some sort of fall prevention will be required if there's no balcony, and that somewhat negates the sliding doors, cos almost half the height of the opening area will need to be protected. I have not yet received quotes for the brise soleils, and have no sense of the additional cost for balconies.

Thoughts?

[Thorfun]

i love a balcony and managed to convince my wife to allow us to have one. but, the way yours are drawn will introduce a thermal bridge in to the building as i would presume they'd be built by cantilevering steels back in to the building. those steels are a cold bridge. you could build them with stilts externally to reduce the thermal bridge. @ProDave is building his own like this.

 

balconies will also give rain protection below so you could, in theory have the GF sliders open if raining in the summer but with the brise soleil the rain will go straight through.

 

brise soleils are probably more expensive that you think although i don't know how much those balconies will add either.

[Conor]

We have balconies but not for sun shading. We were meant to have a mirriad of brise soleis but didn't bother. Decided to live through a full year to see if they are actually needed. They aren't, the single week the house over heated we used the heatpump to cool the house. Several thousand saved.

[Thorfun]

we installed external blinds for solar shading. can also be used for privacy to reduce the need for curtains internally, although the effectiveness of that is still to be seen if/when we finish the house.

[Furnace]

49 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

but, the way yours are drawn will introduce a thermal bridge in to the building

Thanks @Thorfun Excellent point. I had just Sketchup-ed them in, but thinking about it further, it's difficult to see how a cold bridge could be avoided, and since I'm not that keen on them anyway I may well just keep it simple. The PHPP model was based on no balconies, but included brise soleils to keep the overheating under control. I don't have privacy issues, and am not sure about how I'd feel looking out through a blind although I guess you get used to anything over time. My PHPP consultant has exterior blinds and swears by them.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Furnace

[Thorfun]

1 minute ago, Furnace said:

Thanks @Thorfun Excellent point. I had just Sketchup-ed them in, but thinking about it further, it's difficult to see how a cold bridge could be avoided, and since I'm not that keen on them anyway I may well just keep it simple. The PHPP model was based on no balconies, but included brise soleils to keep the overheating under control.

our external blinds are built in to the fabric of the building above the windows and so aren't visible from outside when retracted. maybe consider them for solar shading? do loads more research on it all and get price comparisons. to make the external blinds disappear you need to design them in from the beginning which our architect did in conjunction with the TF company. here's our blog entry which contains our Brise Soleil and external blinds.

 

 

[Furnace]

23 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

here's our blog entry

Ah yes, thank you. I remember reading that.

Did you have the battens for the cladding increased in size to accommodate the blinds? Edit (Yes of course you did. Because you mention it in your post!!! As we are having external blinds and they have a requirement for fitting the blind cassette we needed a large gap between the house walls and the outside of the cladding. This meant 50mm x 50mm timber battens and counter battens. )
On all elevations? Do the blinds run in a track or hang freely? Do you use them? How often?

Edited April 25, 2023 by Furnace
Numptiness

[Thorfun]

2 minutes ago, Furnace said:

Ah yes, thank you. I remember reading that.

Did you have the battens for the cladding increased in size to accommodate the blinds?

yes, increased to 50mm x 50mm to give us a 100mm gap (we have battens and counter battens for our vertical cladding) to accommodate the blinds. this definitely added extra cost!

3 minutes ago, Furnace said:

On all elevations?

yes. we 'probably' could've got away with using narrower battens on the elevations without blinds but, tbh, i never even thought of it nor am i clever enough to figure out how that will effect everything!

 

4 minutes ago, Furnace said:

Do the blinds run in a track or hang freely?

track. you can see the track in the photos on the blog entry but the chippie did a great job of hiding them with the cladding so they really do disappear.

 

5 minutes ago, Furnace said:

Do you use them? How often?

we're not finished yet so 'no' and 'not enough'! 🤣 although last summer when we had that heat wave i lowered them all and it definitely reduced the internal temperature so i have high hopes for when we finally move in and can use them.

[ProDave]

I have just about finished my balcony, but the weather is not nice enough to sit out there now.

 

If you want a cantilevered design as shown you have to design that in right from the start, no option to add the cantilevered support beams afterwards.

 

A lot cheaper and simpler if you are prepared to accept 2 support legs.

[Thorfun]

13 minutes ago, ProDave said:

ass the cantilevered support beams

sounds like something @pocster would do

[ProDave]

3 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

sounds like something @pocster would do

Spelling error corrected.

[Furnace]

17 minutes ago, ProDave said:

A lot cheaper and simpler if you are prepared to accept 2 support legs.

And secure the house side to the exterior of the timber frame, to avoid cold bridging?

[Furnace]

6 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

sounds like something @pocster would do

I thought it might be Scottish colloquial...

 

 

[saveasteading]

The thermal bridge can be broken but it is complex and costly.

 

Brises soleils are also expensive and need serious fixing to the walls as they are sails. They must be modelled to suit the actual sun direction....many are fixed without thought ...or useful effect. 

 

Balconies are also tricky to drain without risk of wetting the house.

4 leg retrofit with a small gap to the house is my choice.

[ProDave]

2 hours ago, saveasteading said:

Balconies are also tricky to drain without risk of wetting the house.

4 leg retrofit with a small gap to the house is my choice.

Mine is only 2 leg, supported from the house but with spacers on the fixing bolts at the house end and set to a very slight fall away from the house to drain rainwater off the outer edge.

[saveasteading]

51 minutes ago, ProDave said:

only 2 leg, supported from the house

Yes that works too. Depends on the structure to some extent.

Have you otherwise left a gap?

[Furnace]

58 minutes ago, ProDave said:

but with spacers on the fixing bolts at the house end and

Do you have pics Dave?

[saveasteading]

Team, let's get this right.

One brise soleil. 

Two brises soleils.

 

[CalvinHobbes]

9 hours ago, Thorfun said:

we installed external blinds for solar shading. can also be used for privacy to reduce the need for curtains internally, although the effectiveness of that is still to be seen if/when we finish the house.

Did you have to get special lintels?

 

[Furnace]

8 hours ago, saveasteading said:

Team, let's get this right.

One brise soleil. 

Two brises soleils.

 

 I believe brise soleil is invariable  (and usually hyphenated) in French, but 'brise-soleils' is generally accepted. 'Brises soleils' is never seen out in public - even worse then 'Banana's for sale'

 

However let's not get bogged down in units or @SteamyTea will be along to rant😉

[Thorfun]

8 hours ago, CalvinHobbes said:

Did you have to get special lintels?

 

nope. at least not that i'm aware of! the majority of our lintels are wood (mostly Kerto iirc). it was all designed and calculated by the TF company

[ProDave]

9 hours ago, Furnace said:

Do you have pics Dave?

In this thread starting at page 4

 

 

[Furnace]

Since this project is a PH new build, I'm keen to design out potential issues at the very beginning. PHPP and the consultant pointed to overheating risks, hence the desire for shading. I like the concept of a brise soleil due to its passive nature - no moving parts like blinds - and am awaiting some quotes. They may well be pricey and I'm not sure how a TF supplier will view them since they add a potentially considerable load that varies with wind strength/direction, angle and spacing of fins. More head scratching to do.

[Furnace]

33 minutes ago, ProDave said:

In this thread starting at page 4

Thanks Dave. Looking good 👍

[saveasteading]

24 minutes ago, Furnace said:

potentially considerable load that varies with wind strength/direction, angle and spacing

There is usually a relatively small bracket to the wall, taking a lot of vertical,  load, trying to twist the bracket off the wall.

I've only fitted them once, on a steel building. As you say, planning ahead is important. We put vertical steels behind each bracket. 

In timber frame it would be similar.