Surrey Glazed Extension

The Problem

A family in Surrey had extended their Victorian house with a contemporary glazed kitchen and living space — floor-to-ceiling glazing on three sides and a partially glazed roof. The extension was a design triumph in winter: light-filled, airy, connected to the garden. By mid-June it was nearly unusable. Temperatures regularly reached 36°C before noon on south-facing days, and the family had resorted to closing the original internal doors to stop the heat spreading into the rest of the house. An air conditioning quote had been obtained but the cost and noise were not acceptable.

The architect who had designed the extension approached us for a shading solution that would preserve the design intent — no visible bulkhead cassettes, minimal visual impact on the elevation, and a product appropriate to the quality of the architecture.

MicroLouvre® Panels: South and West Elevations

We specified MicroLouvre® panels for the south and west-facing glazed walls. MicroLouvre® is a proprietary aluminium panel system in which precision micro-louvre cells block direct solar radiation while allowing diffuse daylight and outward views to pass through. The panels are fixed externally on a powder-coated aluminium subframe and integrate with the extension’s existing glazing system. The cells are engineered to block the solar angles present at this latitude during the summer months while admitting lower winter sun — a passive solar strategy that improves winter performance as well as resolving summer overheating.

The achieved g-value with the MicroLouvre® panels in place is 0.06 — a 93% reduction in solar heat gain compared to the unscreened glazing. The interior temperature on the hottest subsequent summer day reached 24.8°C. The family now use the extension throughout the year.

Roof Glazing: Motorised Blinds

The partially glazed roof section is treated with motorised internal roof blinds in a 5% openness white mesh fabric. These operate on tracks fitted to the roof structure and retract to a neat cassette at the ridge. They are linked to the same Somfy io-homecontrol system as the external panel shading and deploy automatically when solar intensity through the roof glazing reaches a threshold set by the client. The roof blinds provide diffuse, even light when closed — the family leave them partially deployed as a standard setting during summer months.

Installation

The MicroLouvre® frame was installed over two days by our specialist external shading team. No scaffolding was required — all work was accessible from ground level and via a mobile tower on the terrace. The roof blind tracks were installed internally in a single day following the panels. The entire system was commissioned and tested before the family resumed use of the extension.