Holes in conservatory roof - is this to be expected

[njwc]

We have a multi-layer polycarbonate roof on our conservatory which is about 15 years old, and have noticed that several of the panels have one or two small holes, up to approx 10mm across, and we are wondering if this due to the age or the panels or some other issue.

The holes appear to be different ages (some look fresh but some have a little dirt etc on the broken edges) and are irregular in shape. We don't think they are impact damage because there don't appear to be any witness marks or signs of other impacts that weren't hard enough to make a hole, either on the conservatory or on the patio around it

Could this just be down to the panels getting older or could there be some other cause ?

[Laurel Green]

Neighbours air-rifle?

[sunbeam alpine]

Hail stones?

[jas xjr]

Teenager smoking in the room above ?

[IrateNinja]

When I was a about 7 years old and visiting my grandparents, my brother and I used to mess about with an old cricket set. When bored, we took to hitting bits of gravel over the garage in a competition to see how high we could reach.

Didn't realise until the neighbour a few doors down came round ranting about how his nice new conservatory was under a mortar attack from us.

Maybe that?

[Mr MXT]

When I was about 12 I climbed out of the bedroom window to have a walk on the roof. My foot promptly went through the first layer of poly and made a big hole.

I blamed it on the next door neighbours iis throwing bricks.

Might ring the old dear now to make a belated confession.

[darren f]

I expect it will be hail damage- we had this at 2 days after moving into our current house- every panel (bar 1 or 2) on an 8m x 3m conservatory roof got damaged.in a mega hail storm ( it did for our neighbours and 2 other roofs in the road as well). At 10 years+ the polycarbonate gets brittle and can be punched through by bigger hailstones (the guy who fixed ours also thought the polycarbonate had been originally fitted incorrectly, with the UV protection on the inside ).

I was all for leaving it, saving up some cash and and doing away with the (frankly) bloody cr4p conservatory (too hot in summer, too cold in winter) by putting a proper roof on it. But after a few weeks the rain started running through the holes in the top surface, dragging muck and moss into the voids between the 'twin walls' creating black streaks all over the roof making it really scruffy and untidy. With a host of other stuff to sort out with it being a new (to us) house with Mrs f's insistence we hit the bullet and made an insurance claim (... our first ever) as a contribution to getting it changed to double glazed glass.

Which is better by far then polycarbonate, but still nowhere near as an effective solution than a 'proper' roof (IMO).

Edited by darren f on Sunday 30th August 16:01

[njwc]

Thanks for the replies. I'm confident its not teenagers or airguns but hadn't thought of hailstones; we did have some very heavy rain last week but I don't know if there was any hail in it as we weren't home at the time. I think our next step is to probably contact an installer to get an opinion about the cause and what to do about it