Building communities?

[urbpan]

I have a question about construction that I wanted to throw out there:

Can corrugated plastic roofing be attached to a metal-pipe framed cage?

Does anyone reading this know who the right person/community to ask would be? (I suppose a contractor, or a hardware store would be a place to start...)

Comments

[anais2.livejournal.com]

I don't know why you couldn't attach it with U-bolts, as long as you had a meld plate or oversized nut on the plastic side, to make a metal sandwich that would disperse force and prevent cracking under wind pressure.

If the plastic was the only resistance, I don't think it would hold up for long.
They also make a wood ripple-board to fill in the corrugation and support the shape. We used it on our home aviary in CA.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I won't be attaching it myself (we are hiring as yet undetermined contractors).

Thanks for the practical advice!

[rumorofrain.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this is what I was going to say, too. We used those sort of panels on our chicken coop, and they were a pain in the ass but resulted in a snazzy finished product. They do need a ton of support, though - they're very flimsy and will bow in the middle (and edges, and anywhere they're not supported).

Make sure the construction folks are careful with the plastic roofing panels - they're pretty fragile and prone to cracking/ripping, so I'd recommend checking in with them to make sure they're putting in some kind of reinforcement (the "metal sandwich" anais2 mentioned).

Of course, I did use the cheapety-cheap grade of panels, so YMMV.