Flat Patio Types We Build in Perth

An attached patio ties into the house, either bolted to solid brickwork or bracketed off the fascia into the rafter ends. It shares a line with the existing eave, so the covered space reads as part of the home.

A freestanding build stands on its own four or six posts with a gap between it and the house. That gap is the point: it clears the roof, avoids a flashing detail on a tricky eave and lets you put the cover where the shade is rather than where the wall is.

Pools, boundaries and low eave heights usually decide it. So does the roof you already have, because some tile and metal profiles are much easier to flash into than others.

Single-skin Colorbond is one sheet of steel. It is the lightest on cost, it needs purlins across the underside, and on a west-facing patio it radiates heat down through the afternoon.

An insulated panel carries a foam core between two steel skins. It spans further with nothing underneath, it is quieter in rain, and the underside arrives as a finished ceiling you can put downlights into.

Which way you go depends on how the space faces and how often you will sit under it in February. North and east patios are comfortable in single skin. West and north-west usually are not.

A new patio on bare ground is the simplest job. We set the footings where the engineering wants them and the design is only limited by the block and the R-Codes.

An extension or renovation has to meet something that already exists, so the roof height, the fall and the post line are partly fixed before we start. The old structure decides more than most people expect.

A replacement usually starts with a failed pergola, a leaking patio or storm damage. Removing the old one properly, and making good where it was fixed to the house, is half of that job.