Attached Flat Patios in Perth

Fascia mounting brackets the patio off the fascia board at the eave. It keeps the patio roof tucked under the existing gutter line, which suits single-storey homes with reasonable eave height.

Wall mounting bolts a receiver channel directly into the brickwork above or below the eave. It gives you height control and a very strong fixing, which is why it is so common on Perth's double-brick housing.

Freestanding-beside is the third option. The patio stands on its own posts alongside the house with a small flashed gap between the two roofs, and it touches the existing structure barely at all.

A fascia board carries a gutter and nothing else. It is not a structural member, so a fascia-mounted patio is really fixed to the rafter or truss ends sitting behind it.

That is fine when those ends are sound and sized properly. On older Perth homes they are sometimes undersized, previously cut for a past renovation, or simply not where the bracket needs them.

So the first job is often opening up the eave and looking. Where the ends are marginal we brace them or add tie-downs before hanging any uplift load, and where they are not usable we switch to a wall mount.

A builder who quotes a fascia mount without going into the roof space is guessing about the only part that matters.

Perth is overwhelmingly double brick, which is an advantage here. Chemical anchors into solid brickwork give a wall fixing with real capacity, well suited to the uplift a flat roof generates.

The detail still matters. Anchors need proper embedment, correct hole cleaning and the right edge distances, and they must land in brick rather than in perpend joints or a cavity.

Framed and clad walls are different. There the fixing has to reach studs or a properly detailed nogging, and the number of fixings goes up accordingly.

Rendered walls hide what is underneath. We check before we quote rather than after we drill.

Height is the constraint that decides most attached patio designs. The roof has to sit low enough to tuck under the eave or the window heads, and high enough that you are not ducking at the front beam.

The fall works against you here. A three metre deep patio at 1:30 drops a hundred millimetres from house to beam, and a six metre deep one drops twice that.

That arithmetic is exactly why flatter sheet profiles matter. Choosing a profile with a lower minimum pitch can buy back the head height that a corrugated roof would have cost you.

A raised flat roof patio solves it from the other direction. Where the existing roof allows, the patio can start above the eave rather than under it and pick up all the height it needs.

On a tiled roof, the flashing goes up under the tiles. Two courses are lifted, the flashing is dressed underneath and over the patio sheets, and the tiles are relaid over the top.

On a Colorbond roof, it works the same way in principle. The apron tucks under the existing sheets and laps over the new roof, so water passes from one plane to the other without ever crossing a sealed joint.

What never works is a bead of silicone on top of the existing roof. Sealant perishes under WA sun, tiles move, and the leak reappears in the first hard winter.

Where the patio ties in below an existing gutter, a receiver flashing carries the water over the patio roof or into the patio gutter, depending on the design.

Two-storey attachment needs care. A patio fixed under a first-floor window or balcony changes the water path off the upper roof, and the flashing has to account for it.

Overlooking rules also come into play. A raised patio deck or a structure close to a boundary can trigger privacy requirements under the R-Codes, particularly where a neighbour's outdoor living area is affected.

On many two-storey jobs, freestanding-beside is the cleaner answer. It avoids fixing into upper-storey structure and keeps the patio's loads entirely on its own footings.