Flat Patio Installation in Perth

The install starts weeks before anyone arrives with tools. We measure the fascia height at both ends, take levels across the ground, locate services and note the existing roof type and pitch.

Those numbers drive everything downstream. The roof fall, the beam height above the paving, the post lengths and the flashing detail all come out of the measure rather than an assumption.

You get drawings to check. If the head height at the front beam is going to be lower than you pictured, that is the moment to find out.

Day one on site is string lines and a laser level. Post positions are marked from the house, squared, and checked against the drawing before a single hole is dug.

Footings are then excavated to the engineered size. Pads in the 450 to 600 mm range cover most jobs, but sand, fill and proximity to an existing slab edge all push that deeper or wider.

Where an existing slab is thick and sound, posts can be bolted down with chemical anchors instead. Where it is a thin patio slab poured on sand, we core through it and pour a proper footing beneath.

Concrete then needs time. Rushing steel onto green footings is a shortcut that shows up years later as a post that has moved.

Posts go up plumb and to height, then the front beam is lifted and fixed. This is the point where the roofline you have been imagining becomes a real line across your back yard.

At the house end, one of three details applies. A wall bracket bolted into brickwork, a fascia bracket reaching through to the rafter or truss ends, or an independent row of posts standing beside the existing wall.

Old fascias sometimes need work first. If the rafter ends are undersized or the fascia has been previously modified, we brace or pack them before hanging any load off them.

Purlins then run between the house and the beam at the spacing the roof sheet requires. That spacing is set by the profile, not by eye.

Sheets are laid to the fall, lapped in the direction of the prevailing weather, and fixed at the manufacturer's pattern. Fixing into every second rib on a windy coastal site is not the same specification as an inland job.

Flashing into the existing roof is the highest-risk detail on the whole build. On tile, we lift two courses and dress the flashing up under them; on metal, the flashing goes under the existing sheets and over the new ones.

Anything sealed on top of an existing roof is a temporary fix pretending to be permanent. Silicone perishes, tiles move, and the water finds it.

Barge and fascia capping then closes the edges, and the whole roof gets swept clear of swarf. Steel filings left on Colorbond rust into the paint within weeks.

The gutter is sized to the roof area and the fall, not fitted by habit. A wide roof draining to one downpipe will overflow in a Perth winter burst regardless of how neat it looks.

Downpipes are positioned where they suit the house and the soakwell, usually at a post so the pipe can be run tight to the steel and half-disappear.

Stormwater then goes to a soakwell sized for the added catchment, as councils require on-site disposal. That connection is part of the job, not an afterthought for the owner to arrange.

Access decides the method. A rear yard reachable only through a 900 mm side gate means every post, beam and sheet is carried in by hand, and the beam length becomes a real constraint.

Soil varies sharply across the metro area. Deep Bassendean and Spearwood sands, limestone in the western suburbs, and clay and rock through the foothills all change the excavation and the pad size.

Coastal sites change the materials. Within a couple of kilometres of the ocean we specify a marine-grade finish and matched fixings, because mixing metals near salt air is a slow, expensive mistake.