This was a fun but challenging project. The homeowner wanted to build a tall pergola outside his back door. It was a full 16ft to the bottom of the first cross beam.
The homeowner first had some concrete squares poured with the mounting brackets installed for the upright posts. Before starting this project all the beams and posts were primed with primer.
Before I tilted up the posts, I mounted the top brackets. Then I tilted up the posts into the mounts and drilled out holes for the bolts.
Next we installed and mounted the cross beams.
Then we installed the next layer of beams and then the final row off beams. Mounted all of them down with brackets to keep them in place and to keep them straight.
Here I’m showing a closer look to the hold downs on the posts, and also showing the posts and how we made them larger by wrapping them with more boards to make them look thicker.
Then I wrapped the front and back of the posts to cover over the bolts & brackets.
This pergola took some serious muscle power to lift the beams into place. With all the mounting brackets and hold downs this pergola became nice and rigid. The homeowner mentioned they wanted the pergola this tall, so they could drape yards of cloth, and roll down shades on the sides to provide more shade.
I have seen other pergolas that were this tall, and they grew grapes up the sides and had the grapes drape down from the top of the pergola. Others have had bougainvillea flower vines grow up the posts and the flowers were draping down.
Michele
May 4, 2011 at 6:33 AM
Wow! Looks very nice! Looks like a it was a fun project!
Alliance_Concrete_ Pumps
June 15, 2011 at 11:48 AM
Great work. I really like the look of those and have threatened to add on to my home in the past. They really give a good feel to an area and do a pretty good job of breaking up direct sun light. I have seen those done elsewhere with much thicker cross beams which did suprisingly more sun light reduction. Great work! Dave