PERGOLA PROJECT

Our deck on the south/back side of the house gets very hot in the summer so we have been considering different ways to provide shade without putting a roof over the entire deck.  When we were in Arizona, we saw many houses and condos with pergolas over their patio areas that provided some shade but didn’t block the sunshine completely.  They were very attractive and seemed to meet our needs so we decided that we’d like to start our shade project with a pergola.  As the deck itself is not directly attached to the house, designing the pergola required some careful planning and engineering.

Three design challenges needed to be incorporated into the plan:

First, the deck is connected to the house with a 2 level walkway (like an isthmus) that is an isosceles trapezoid in shape.  (Hey, I do remember grade 10 geometry!!)  Therefore, a standard rectangular 4 post structure wouldn't work.  

Second, the window wells for the basement bedrooms are partially under the deck walkway so support posts could not be put in right beside the house.

Third, the dining room window is very close to the deck door and is also higher than the door. Therefore, the length of the header supporting that end of the pergola would be limited by the window location.

With all those constraints, we decided to attach a “header” board directly to the house above the deck door and then “fan out” the pergola to the deck where we put 2 posts outside the deck walkway near the main deck railing.  These photos will show you how it all works.

We worked at the project in bits and pieces from April 29 to May 23 and it was a good way to tackle the job.  We never got bored with the repetitious parts (painting the boards and shade pieces) and had enough time in between phases to evaluate the design and plan the next steps.  We designed the curved shapes at the ends of the main beam and fanned out headers and also cut the ends of the shade pieces at a 30 degree angle.

Once the pergola was built, we attached a 12 foot wide fabric awning that extends out about 10 feet.  It is similar to the motorized awning we have on our RV but this one has a remote control and a wind sensor so it will automatically retract when the wind comes up.  How cool is that?  Now we just need some hot weather to enjoy the additional shade.