How to properly equip a carport

Recommendation points

• Why canopy is better
• Site preparation and foundation laying
• Installation of pillars and roof frame
• Railing and roofing

Today, the construction portal shares useful tips again. You will learn: why a carport is often more useful than a full-fledged garage, is it possible to organize a repair site practically in the open air and how to equip a parking space with minimal costs.

Why canopy is better

Surprisingly, a garage does not provide ideal conditions for storing a car. In an isolated room, the air quickly warms up from the residual heat of the engine, which causes condensation to form on the cold body parts. In winter, the snow adhering to the bottom melts, further increasing the humidity. Natural ventilation is preserved under the canopy, which eliminates the risk of corrosion of parts that do not have a protective coating.

When placing a car under a canopy, free access to it from all sides is maintained, which makes it easier to wash and clean the cabin right at the parking lot, pick up and drop off passengers, load and unload luggage. To protect against slanting rain, the canopy is either made much larger than the dimensions of the car, or the sidewalls are covered with a soft awning.

After all, in terms of construction cost, a carport is much cheaper than a garage: the cost of the entire set of materials is comparable to the steel door assembly alone. Eliminates the need not only for the construction of walls, but also for flooring, interior and exterior decoration, ceiling filing. At the same time, the canopy can be used for rest and feasts, simply by overtaking the car to another place.

One of the main advantages of a canopy is that it can be turned into a garage at any time by adding walls and installing a gate. True, such a possibility should be foreseen in advance: laying the foundation in advance, planning the territory, a sufficiently large width of the roof overhang on all sides. However, the very opportunity to postpone the second stage of construction is very useful, it helps to stretch the expenditure of money in time, which, after the completion of the construction of a country house, is almost always not enough.

Site preparation and foundation laying

The scope of work at the first stage of building a canopy depends on whether the owner is going to independently perform comprehensive maintenance of his car, or will be content only with the current one, entrusting serious repairs to the specialists of the car service.

Example of carport dimensions

In the latter case, it is enough just to plan the soil at the construction site of the shed and create a cover on the parking area. It is necessary to slightly raise the surface of the parking lot over the adjacent territory, to exclude the formation of mud and puddles. A gravel embankment, special lawn, paving slabs and any type of road surface are well suited for this..

If the canopy is being built taking into account the repair, an inspection pit will be required. Its arrangement practically does not differ from the garage: the walls are faced with bricks, the floor is covered with concrete or hygroscopic backfill 25–30 cm thick, a frame made of a steel corner is mounted on top, all joints are sealed with cement mortar.

However, the pit under the canopy must be protected from flooding. This will require not only covering the floor with a screed or other waterproof material, but also raising the platform above the adjacent terrain at least 100 mm and a slope from the pit frame to the edges of the order of 2-3%. It is imperative to provide sufficiently wide roof overhangs: in plan, it should go beyond the pit boundaries by at least 150 cm on each side.

When laying the foundation, you should take into account plans for the further development of the project. So, if it is supposed to simply sheathe the walls with sheet materials, the construction of a full-fledged strip foundation is not necessary. It is enough to concrete only the pillars supporting the roof, and then assemble a light frame structure based on these load-bearing elements.

If it is planned to build capital walls, a foundation should be laid under them in advance. It should not be located below the GWL, otherwise it is required to use concrete with low water absorption – class W6 or higher. It is impossible not to take into account the forces of frost heaving, because if the vibrations of the base do not pose a danger for the canopy, then the masonry or frame wall can become covered with cracks, since they do not have a sufficiently high deformability. The way out in this situation is to lay the concrete tape below the freezing depth, while making it massive enough to withstand the increasing lateral pressure of the soil.

When building a capital foundation, it is not necessary to fill the site with a screed. The floor under a canopy can be organized along the ground, filling the area bounded by a tape, incompressible material: construction battle, gravel with sand, expanded clay. Subsequently, when arranging the floor in the garage, this material can be removed and used as a filler for concrete, or sprinkled with it in the driveway..

Installation of pillars and roof frame

The simplest canopy requires four posts installed at the corners of the roof frame. The height of the supports should be 30–50 cm higher than the vehicle height, but not less than 2 meters. Increasing the height, the canopy should be made proportionally wider to protect against slanting rain. For the construction of a lean-to canopy, two pairs of supports of different heights will be required, the drop should be about 10 cm for each meter of the slope length. Equal supports are installed under an arched or gable roof, then, when strapping, trusses are mounted, forming the shape of the roof.

For the manufacture of pillars, the easiest way is to purchase round or shaped pipes 80–100 mm, a channel of standard size 10 or 12, steel corners welded into a square with a shelf of 70 cm. Frame structures, for example, from profile reinforcement, will be cheaper, but more difficult to manufacture. Four rods with a thickness of 14 mm should be placed on the tops of the square and connected with each other with cross ties made of 10 mm reinforcement. After that, from the same thin reinforcement, add one diagonal tie to each cell. This spatial design is well suited for growing vines or ivy, which allows you to decorate an unsightly metal frame..

When pouring the foundation, the pillars must be made in advance, or the pieces of reinforcement must be laid in the concrete in time as embeds. If the pillars are concreted separately, for them you need to dig holes 1/5 of the height of the supports, pour crushed stone on the bottom with a layer of 3-5 cm and build the formwork of the aboveground part up to 10 cm high.

The greatest difficulty is the process of aligning the supports, because they are quite heavy, which means that there will be no superfluous service from an assistant. To begin with, you can stretch the lacing on the pegs, thus outlining a rectangular area. It is imperative to check the diagonals of the formed rectangle and make sure that the binding to nearby buildings or objects is correct..

Markers for positioning the posts are laid out at right angles to the lines. Initially, it is sufficient to align the posts vertically using a rack level. After that, you need to align the tops of the supports in accordance with their location at the bottom, where the lacing is pulled, aligning the diagonals and sides of the rectangle. After completing the alignment, the supports must be reliably immobilized by welding the longitudinal ties from the reinforcement to them and connecting the diagonals with it. After the concrete has set, they can be removed before the upper chord is installed.

Railing and roofing

The final stage is the device of the canopy itself. To do this, it is necessary to fix the supporting beams in one plane, on top of which the transverse lathing is located. The installation procedure depends on the roof configuration:

• For a flat shed, the upper and lower supports are connected with crossbars. Between them, with a step of 100-120 cm, inclined beams are installed from a profile pipe 50×50 mm, a corner 70 mm wide or a wooden bar 100×50 mm.
• For a gable roof, instead of crossbars, you need to install two triangular trusses, then connect them with beams of the same section.
• An arched canopy is built on the principle of a gable, however, instead of triangular trusses, radius.

The length of the beams of the indicated section can reach 6–7 meters, which is sufficient for an average car. If you need more, you will need to pre-install intermediate posts and place additional crossbars or trusses on them. It is imperative to release the beams beyond the extreme supports of the order of 20-30 cm so that the metal structures are protected from precipitation.

After the beams are installed, the transverse lathing can be attached to them from above. Its pitch depends on the format of the selected coating: one rail must be installed on the overlaps, then fill the remaining space so that the clearance is 15–20 cm. It is better to use a 150×20 mm edged board as a lathing, a 20×20 profile pipe is suitable for covering with polycarbonate or transparent slate mm.