Pergola wood plan

Finding and creating pergola plans

I invested a lot of time surfing the web looking for pergola plans before I built one last year. If you keep looking, you’ll find some sites that are selling plans for basic pergola designs. There are more sites out there selling pergolas of all kinds; wood, aluminum, steel and plastic. I’m a do-it-yourselfer and went for building one in wood.
The lattice pieces overhead are dropped into slots between the joists and are easily removed for winter sun exposure. The open window effect is easily done, again using some pressure treated lattice as ‘walls’. To do the design, I used some basic pergola plans that gave me the general layout and a material list. I made my own changes to that design to meet our needs.

Plans Need Good Design and Good Engineering
It is important that the pergola have good rigidity during what an engineer would call periods of high load. This would be during high winds and for those in winter locations, times of snow and ice. For instance, it is not a good idea to just plunk the uprights onto an existing deck. Just fastening the feet firmly to the deck may not be enough in a high wind. A strong wind force on the top can overcome the bolts holding the feet at the bottom. It is for that reason that I extended the uprights below the deck, to give them some favorable leverage. Get some decent pergola plans to be sure.

They give you 15 well engineered plans for a wide range of final sizes. Just pick the size that is closest to yours and change it to your own final design.

Sun and Easy Access Are Important

• We wanted sun exposure in the winter and sun control in the summer. Your pergola will be wasted if you don’t have sun on it for the time of day you will be using it. We use ours for meals and relaxing from morning to evening, so its south exposure is ideal. The overhead panels give us good light without the full and overwhelming summer sun. I take them off as winter approaches, to give us light streaming into the kitchen through the sliding glass door.
  
• We wanted quick access to it, to be able to use it frequently. I built it on the deck just outside the kitchen sliding door. We step to it immediately from the house. If you put your pergola in the middle of a yard or off in a corner, it won’t see much use.