Saved by a conservatory

An Ultraframe conservatory installed by Realistic Home Improvements in Exeter was recently hit by a 600kg silage bale, but managed to protect both homeowners who were in the conservatory at the time.

The view from Mr and Mrs Bushell’s conservatory looks up a sloping garden towards a farmer’s field where, one evening, a contractor was wrapping silage bales in black plastic.

When one of the silage bales rolled down the field, it smashed through the hedge and fencing around the homeowners’ garden and landed on top of their conservatory. Two of the glazed roof panels smashed, covering the couple with safety glass. However, the frame around the conservatory remained intact, preventing the bale from hitting the couple.

“The conservatory style is a lean-to, on bolster beams,” Ryan Barrett, managing director at Realistic Home Improvements, said. “The ring beam was twisted but the bolster beams remained intact. If it had been a polycarbonate conservatory without the reinforced roof, it could have been a lot worse.”

Mrs Bushell said: “Thank goodness we made the choice of conservatory that we did. If we hadn’t selected such a good quality, solid conservatory, we’d probably be dead now. When I asked my husband how he wanted to repair the damage from the silage bale, he told me simply, ‘I want exactly the same conservatory as the one which saved my life’.”

Realistic Home Improvements, which has offices across Devon and Cornwall, is now in the process of installing a new Ultraframe conservatory for Mr and Mrs Bushell.