When you have to position a marquee side-on to a house and don’t have the luxury of using a walkway, things can get a bit tricky. While a proper walkway (especially one of ours!) makes the process much simpler, there are ways to make do with what you have. Here are a couple of options to consider when weathering a marquee to a house in these situations:
Option 1: Butting the Marquee Directly Against the House
This approach is similar to last week’s method, where you push the marquee up against the house. However, the challenge comes with the type and size of doors you’re working around:
- Sliding Patio Doors: These are the easiest to deal with. You can butt the marquee up to the house at any height and simply use guttering to weather the join. However, you might encounter a step down into the marquee, and there’s a chance people could bump their heads on the eave rail or gutter.
- Inward-Opening Patio Doors: These can be treated similarly to sliding doors, allowing for a fairly simple connection between the house and marquee.
- Outward-Opening Patio Doors: These are the most common and the most problematic. Here, you have three options:
- Use a walkway (I’ll cover this in next week’s post).
- Create your own makeshift walkway (see Option 2 below).
- Lift the marquee up over the doors. If you’re using one of our deluxe marquees, there’s a good chance it’s tall enough to clear the doors. However, with a standard commercial marquee, you may need to “chock it up” using bricks or extensions to raise it slightly. This should be a last resort since marquees aren’t designed to be propped up, and changing the angle of the roof can affect how water runs off.
Option 2: Creating Your Own Walkway
If the house has outward-opening doors, you can try making a temporary walkway yourself:
- Open the Doors to 90 Degrees: Open the doors so they are perpendicular to the house.
- Place a Wooden Plank Across the Top: Lay a piece of wood across the top of the doors. Ideally, you want to use chocks to hold the doors in place and angle the plank slightly so that any rainwater runs away from the house.
- Butt the Marquee to the Walkway: This makes a very short and easy DIY walkway, allowing you to weather the marquee against the house with minimal fuss.
Final Thoughts:
While these methods can help you get by, the best solution is still the one I discussed last week: positioning the end of the marquee directly against the house. If that’s not an option, investing in a decent walkway will save you time and effort and give a more professional look.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for next week’s post on walkways!
— Spencer
