The question arrives with almost every enquiry and it always sounds the same: can it be done without a permit? The honest answer is that the rules are not my part of the job — your municipality confirms them. What I do know is how the question looks from the building side, and what changes in the structure once it is answered.
I fabricate and install. I do not file applications, I do not carry anyone else's deadlines, and I will not guess what a particular municipality will decide: their rules are their own, plots differ, and whatever went through for a neighbour promises nothing for you. The only reliable source is your own municipality, and it is worth asking before the order rather than after.
What I can give you for that conversation: dimensions, a frame drawing, the height, the roofing type and the weight of the structure. That is usually enough to stop the question being abstract.
The difference is simple and entirely structural. A free-standing frame sits on its own posts: the load goes into the ground and the house carries nothing. A fixed one leans on the wall or the roof, and then part of the weight and all of the wind load pass into the building.
For me these are two different jobs. A free-standing frame needs its own footings — concrete pads across most of Cyprus, anchors where rock comes up. A fixed one needs certainty that the wall will hold: aerated block and thin cladding hold badly, and the fixings have to reach the load-bearing layer.
And one more thing: a free-standing frame can be taken apart and moved. A fixed one leaves holes in the wall behind it.
In my experience the conversation always comes down to four things: the area, whether the structure touches the building, whether the plot is residential or commercial, and whether there is a management company above it. The last one gets forgotten most often — complexes and gated developments have rules of their own, and they can be stricter than the town: colour, height, how it looks from the street.
Ask about all of it in one go. Redoing the size twice is an ordinary story: someone learns about a limit after the frame has already been welded.
A solar boiler frame, an air-conditioner bracket, a roof ladder — the question arrives about those too, and there it is settled the same way: does the structure touch the building or not. An outdoor shower by the pool stands on its own and raises the fewest questions of all.
A free-standing frame costs more: its own posts and its own footings. A 3×3 steel carport with a sheet roof is €1500, a 3×5 is €2200, and the same 3×5 in aluminium under polycarbonate is €3200. A pergola starts at €900. A fixed version of the same area comes out cheaper, with half the posts, but it depends on a wall that has to be up to it.
The gap between the two is smaller than it looks, and it is better decided on structural grounds than on paperwork: a frame that stands on its own outlives both a change of rules and a move.
Catalogue prices are what the model works out, not a price tag: nothing is in stock, every piece is welded to size. The final price is agreed personally.
Frame for a 120–200 litre tank, flat roof or pitched. With wind bracing so the winter gusts leave the collector alone.
Bracket for the outdoor unit: up to 12,000, 18,000 BTU or more. With an anti-theft cage if the unit sits on the ground floor.
Ladder to the roof for the boiler and the aerials: straight, with a safety cage, or with a removable lower section.
A shower post by the pool or at the beach house. Galvanised, aluminium or stainless — next to salt water that is not decoration.
All welding services
We work across all Cyprus
Based in Larnaca — I travel to every town and village in Cyprus with full equipment and a generator on board.