Polycarbonate - prep

Our polycarbonate panels arrived all bundled up as scheduled from Greenwall Solutions, and when we were ready for them we carefully unpacked them to get ready for our install....

You can see here the hollow cores of the panels, and that they have protective film on both sides.  The branded side faces out because it has the UV coating. 

Greg counting, re counting and counting again.  These are the U channels that secure the top and bottom of the panels. 

We chose to have the panels and aluminum pieces pre-cut slightly larger that we needed.  This was to save on shipping costs and to make handling easier.  We figured that because we were going to be installing them on the face of the trusses, there may be some discrepancy in measurements.  A good call all around.

The goodies in the box.. more on this next post

The aluminum pieces come stock in white, and we decided we would paint them black ourselves to prevent any delay.. they can be custom colored in the factory, but it adds 2-3 weeks to the delivery time and we wanted them sooner.  As it turned out the pieces sat getting rained on for at least that long so we could have had them done.  Ahh well, it's been a while since I have stretched my DIY muscles, and it gave Greg and I some quality time without the little ones... something we have not done much lately.

ready to go

A little Tremclad will do the trick 

the uprights waiting their turn

A couple of quick coats of Tremclad got everything done, and they look lovely in black!  We're thrilled with how it turned out, but I will advise that the factory finish is FAR more durable than our spray job.  The Tremclad scratches very easily, and as we still had some cutting to do some damage was done here and there.  

One more post is still to come, and I'll tell you all about the installation.  Stay tuned!