Attaching a pergola to ledger board on roof

[Gabriel Marusic]

After completely taking over my parents garage for something around 6 months now with my new woodworking hobby I'm on the hook for building them a new pergola. I'm eager to get this built as my mom has wanted one for years and both my parents have been incredibly patient with me considering they haven't been able to park their car in the garage for 6 months now. I am looking to build it 12' x 20' with one side of the 20' length attached to the roof and this is where I'm stuck. Ideally I'd mount this to a ledger board attached to the house wall with some joist hangers but unfortunately it would sit too low due to the soffit so I'm looking at connecting it to the roof instead. I was thinking again use a ledger board with some type of sloped joist hanger to accommodate the angle of the roof but wanted to run it by you guys first. I've seen some full pergola kits for roof attaching with custom brackets that look nice, though they don't sell just the mounts, I'd have to buy the whole $6k plus kit. Is a sloped joist hanger the way to go here? Really not set on that idea but all I could really come up with outside of going custom. The brackets I'm looking at all seem to be interior brackets as well, not sure if that structurally matters but something I definitely want to vet out, especially since I need to get a permit.

[Frank Pratt]

That wouldn't really be a ledger board on the edge of the roof. It's a facia, which is probably just 1X board that is nailed to the ends of the trusses/rafters. There is no structural strength there at all. It's just to close in the edge of the roof structure & make it look pretty.

Post some pics & you'll get better answers.

[Joe Wood]

Take a look at the skylift roof risers, I've been wanting to use them but haven't had the opportunity yet
https://www.skylifthardware.com/default.asp

[Gabriel Marusic]

That wouldn't really be a ledger board on the edge of the roof. It's a facia, which is probably just 1X board that is nailed to the ends of the trusses/rafters. There is no structural strength there at all. It's just to close in the edge of the roof structure & make it look pretty.

Post some pics & you'll get better answers.

Sorry, not putting it at the edge of the roof but rather on top of the soffit or further back. I'll try to get over there today and take some pictures of the space.

[Gabriel Marusic]

Take a look at the skylift roof risers, I've been wanting to use them but haven't had the opportunity yet
https://www.skylifthardware.com/default.asp


That does look interesting, thanks for the tip!

[Ron Selzer]

personally I would support it totally separate from the house
asking for potential water penetration at every flashing
I also will not attach a deck to a house
I will attach a porch however have to be very careful how it is detailed at the attachment points
good luck
Ron

[Doug Garson]

personally I would support it totally separate from the house
asking for potential water penetration at every flashing
I also will not attach a deck to a house
I will attach a porch however have to be very careful how it is detailed at the attachment points
good luck
Ron
OK I'll bite when does a porch become a deck?

[Ron Selzer]

OK I'll bite when does a porch become a deck?

deck is not a porch where I come from, maybe elsewhere, might just be my age showing.
Do have a multi level deck on the back of my house and a small front porch
NO decks around when I was growing up. Rare to see a house without a porch growing up, now not usual to see one
don't like when the porches get closed in to use as "4 season rooms"
let's not get started on stoops vs porches
Ron

[Gabriel Marusic]

deck is not a porch where I come from, maybe elsewhere, might just be my age showing.
Do have a multi level deck on the back of my house and a small front porch
NO decks around when I was growing up. Rare to see a house without a porch growing up, now not usual to see one
don't like when the porches get closed in to use as "4 season rooms"
let's not get started on stoops vs porches
Ron

I like the sound of having a stoop, though I'd actually prefer a porch.

[Gabriel Marusic]

personally I would support it totally separate from the house
asking for potential water penetration at every flashing
I also will not attach a deck to a house
I will attach a porch however have to be very careful how it is detailed at the attachment points
good luck
Ron

We thought about that but with how narrow the patio is we felt we'd be losing too much usable space to make room for the 8 x 8 posts.

[Tom M King]

I agree with what Ron said about not fastening it to the top of the roof.

Around here, a deck doesn't have a roof, but a porch does.

[Richard Coers]

personally I would support it totally separate from the house
asking for potential water penetration at every flashing
I also will not attach a deck to a house
I will attach a porch however have to be very careful how it is detailed at the attachment points
good luck
Ron
Great advice. The first house our daughter wanted to buy had a deck that wasn't long from a rebuild. While the inspector was inside the house I looked at the deck. I took out a pocket knife, and I could bury it into the house rim joist that the deck was lagged to. The builder did not use any flashing and with a joint against the house, it stayed wet all the time and made for a rotten deck frame and structural damage to the house. $20 of flashing or spacers to keep the deck frame away from the house would have prevented thousands of dollars of damage. She did not buy that house!

[Bruce King]

I agree with others, the roof system is no where close to being designed to handle loads or slight movements of the pergola. It would require an engineer to prevent problems, leaks and resale issues later. The requirements for attaching anything to the house has gotten so involved that builders make them self standing. Even a self standing pergola of that size is something that needs an engineer to design.

[Mel Fulks]

I would talk to them about a gazebo. It's a much better feel and nice to be able to see in all directions. You can fit them
with curtains or shades all around. A small gazebo would be cozy and too small to attract spontaneous neighborhood
parties. If the yard is open and sunny a "noon mark" would be nice, it's something that people have used and enjoyed
for thousands of years. There are so many wonderful things that your neighbors don't have and don't know a thing about,
And since a gazebo is not touching the house you most likely don't need a building permit.

[Bill Dufour]

I remember in 2015 when 6 people died in Berkeley when a balcony collapsed due to rot. The attachment to the building was not flashed properly. They decided it was also completed in the rain so the sealed wall was damp inside for five yeas before it rotted enough to collapse under less then a full rated load.
The city soon thereafter closed the public fishing pier and will probably never spend the money to rebuild it.
Bill D.

[roger wiegand]

Another vote for making the pergola free standing. Much less complicated. Make it a foot wider if it's too narrow. You can probably do 12x20 with a total of six posts, given some engineering and stout connectors. The posts shouldn't be all that intrusive.

[Bob Cooper]

Seems like that sky lift system would overcome most of y’all’s objections. It sits on the rim joist/wall and is flashed like any plumbing penetration. Pretty clever I though.

[Frank Pratt]

Seems like that sky lift system would overcome most of y’all’s objections. It sits on the rim joist/wall and is flashed like any plumbing penetration. Pretty clever I though.

The problem with that system is that you have all these roof penetrations that are going to move every time there's a good wind storm, which has the potential for leaking. Things like plumbing & vent penetrations are not likely to have that movement concern.

I'd go for supporting it independently from the house before using sky lift.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

How much height do you need? We figured out a way to mount this one to the subfascia and still keep the gutter. It's a pretty simple solution in a place that would not allow an inside set of posts.
442924

[Gabriel Marusic]

How much height do you need? We figured out a way to mount this one to the subfascia and still keep the gutter. It's a pretty simple solution in a place that would not allow an inside set of posts.


That looks great. Ideally it would be 10 feet tall though I haven't thought about a minimum height yet. How tall is yours? At 6'4 I don't want to feel cramped under it.

[Gabriel Marusic]

Another vote for making the pergola free standing. Much less complicated. Make it a foot wider if it's too narrow. You can probably do 12x20 with a total of six posts, given some engineering and stout connectors. The posts shouldn't be all that intrusive.

The plans I'm adapting from are 6 posts for the 12' x 20' and is definitely what I'd go with for the 20 feet.. I wish we could go wider but they have brick planter boxes and a ground gutter in between that prevents us from getting any more width.

These are the plans I have been looking at adapting from. https://howtospecialist.com/outdoor/pergola/large-pergola-plans/

[Steve Rozmiarek]

That looks great. Ideally it would be 10 feet tall though I haven't thought about a minimum height yet. How tall is yours? At 6'4 I don't want to feel cramped under it.

Thanks, it really dressed up the house. I'm 6'4" to, so I get the height concerns. Had the same thought process going on here. The pergola is 7' 6" to bottom. I also wanted much higher, until we mocked some things up (I recommend mocking it up), then the higher than eave line pergola became apparent that it didn't look good on this low slope house. Also there was really no good way to put interior posts in as the eaves are 24" and the deck is only 8' wide, the eaves hanging into the space at a lower than pergola height would have been weird to. It would have been different if this was being attached to a two story gable end. Turns out that it doesn't feel low.

Before pic attached.
443048

[Alan Lightstone]

How much height do you need? We figured out a way to mount this one to the subfascia and still keep the gutter. It's a pretty simple solution in a place that would not allow an inside set of posts.
442924

That's really nice looking, Steve. I've been trying to get a pergola on two houses for years. Ah, HOAs...

[andrew whicker]

In Utah, sheds under 200 sq ft don't need engineering, but need a permit. Pergolas under 200 sq ft don't need a permit (no roof, no snowload, etc).

You can call your local jurisdiction, but expect to get told you need a permit and engineering drawings to put a tick tack in your lawn. Unfortunately, you have to know what is expected thru your own reading of zoning, etc or talking to an experienced and trustworthy source. The city will scare you into requirements that aren't necessary. I called a city about an install I'm doing and when I said 'commercial property' they told me 'ohhhh, now we're talking ADA and everything'. ADA... for four posts in the ground. I talked to an experienced architect in the area and they said nothing is needed under 200 sq ft, which was my impression after reading the building codes.

Anyway, someone brought up permits... not meaning to side track this convo, just my two cents that I wouldn't pull a permit unless absolutely necessary.

OTH, building codes give a nice template for how to do things properly. Even if not required by law, they are a good resource.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

That's really nice looking, Steve. I've been trying to get a pergola on two houses for years. Ah, HOAs...

Thank you Alan. We closed this project out Friday actually, customers had a wedding reception there Saturday. Talk about a deadline!

HOA's, that reason number 1 and 2 that I like being a contractor out here, there are no HOA's in this part of the wild west!