# My new carport.



## sorearms (Jun 27, 2007)

Seeing as I've just (nearly) finished a carport over my driveway I thought I'd share some pics. It's 6.1m X 3.5m and we set the wooden posts in concrete. I first sprayed the bottom two feet of the posts with plastidip, they were then wrapped in some rubberised membrane that my mate who's a joiner brought round. And Finaly I put black bin liners over the top before we set them in.

We discussed raising them on a slab but as my mate said, his grandads carport is set in concrete and has stood for 30 years and has never needed shoring up. If any problems do arise with mine, I'll just replace the posts, easy to do as we notched the posts and drove through wood bolts.

The roof was bought from Nick Gray Carports and is 10mm thick polycarbonate, and I bought a gutter kit from them too. I've also installed two 200L waterbutts so I can use the water to wash my car.

Also I'm aware my neighbours fence is a work of art :lol: I cut their front grass to keep the street looking tidy and I might well put some feather edge over that and give them my metal gate when I replace it with a wooden one. They're really nice people, she doesn't keep well and he works a lot of night shifts and detests gardening unfortunately.

Anyway, I'll shut up now. Here's some pics!

The driveway in question.


The fence posts are 100x100mm and 10ft high we used 8 of them. They're set over two feet down and set in concrete. All the wood used is pressure treated timber. This was the end of day one after digging and setting. I'd already pre stained the wood in rich cedar. 


The next night we worked on it and we railed the 6x3s and put up the rafters. 


This is where we left it that night.




Next up was putting the roof up. I never took and during pics so here's what I have.


Finally here's some nearly finished pics.




And here's who's house it is. My Estoril blue BMW E46 Clubsport.


With the dodgy Clubsport spoiler removed and a CSL bootlid in its place.


One final pic of it tucked up nice and dry.


Next step is to buy another shed for lawnmower etc, then flip the one you can see around so the door leads onto the carport, that way my karcher K5 can be easily hooked up to the waterbutt and my trolley Jack etc etc are all within easy reach.

Final thoughts are I'm really glad I've done it, the car stays nice and dry with no dirty rain spots and dust sticking to it after the morning dew. Plus the Windows won't freeze in winter. The only thing I regret is I wish we'd given it more than a 6" fall as the morning dew just sits on the roof and doesn't go to the waterbutts. I'd say a 12" fall would've been perfect and would lead to a cleaner roof. Other than that, I love it.

I've got future plans to enclose the open side and install an electric roller door on the front but I'll have to go through planning for that phase to check if it's oK to use fire resistant paint or if it's a no go. If I make any changes, I'll post them here.

Comments welcome.

Cheers :wave:


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## kingswood (Jun 23, 2016)

looks really good 

no problems sinking the posts closest to the house in? some ports ive seen go straight into the house like a lean too.


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## Del-GTi (Mar 31, 2007)

Looks good mate. Nice bit of protection for the car.


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## sorearms (Jun 27, 2007)

kingswood said:


> looks really good
> 
> no problems sinking the posts closest to the house in? some ports ive seen go straight into the house like a lean too.


Thanks, no problems, the posts went in fine. I knew from doing the post for the side gate that I didn't hit the foundations there, and luckily it was the same with them, two bags of Postcrete in each hole, we left the first bag to set for a good few days then put the second in.

The original plan was to have it hanging from the wall, then when ideas started growing arms and legs, my mate the joiner suggested just using posts and we could put a door on the front, and if I do enclose it, it'll be handy for putting shelving up between the posts. Luckily the posts aren't in my way when getting in and out of the car too.


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## DouglasH (Jul 18, 2007)

Looking good and winter should be a lot easier too.


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## Spike85 (May 22, 2016)

brilliant work. Cracking car deserves some shelter. He's no longer Homeless


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## BM-Stu (Dec 23, 2006)

Nice work, thanks for posting.


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## chongo (Jun 7, 2014)

Great job mate, you have one nice car there.


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## shaks247 (Mar 19, 2012)

Nice, mind asking what it roughly cost you in parts. I'm also planning on building a carport.


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## Zetec-al (Feb 28, 2011)

Nice, have you sealed between carport and outside of house to stop water geting inbetween? (Hopefuly you know what i mean there)


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## slim_boy_fat (Jun 23, 2006)

Nice job! :thumb:

Where does the roof drain to? Onto your neighbours ground?


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## sorearms (Jun 27, 2007)

shaks247 said:


> Nice, mind asking what it roughly cost you in parts. I'm also planning on building a carport.


All in it cost me about £1000. The roof and guttering were £400. Wood around the same, then you've got things like Postcrete, the waterbutts and wood stain etc. It's probably closer to £1,100 in reality but I haven't totted it up exactly. It could be done much cheaper as we've definately made it beefier than it needs to be, and bought a proper roof rather than the thin noisy corrugated stuff, but I'd rather it be too strong than too weak.

Hope this helps.



Zetec-al said:


> Nice, have you sealed between carport and outside of house to stop water geting inbetween? (Hopefuly you know what i mean there)


Hi, yeah I understand you. We've made it so the roof overhangs the posts and buts up tight against the wall. I was going to add a plastic flashing too but I've yet to see any water getting through despite some really heavy downpours. I'll keep an eye on it but I think it'll be fine.



slim_boy_fat said:


> Nice job! :thumb:
> 
> Where does the roof drain to? Onto your neighbours ground?


Thanks. Haha, not that my neighbours would even notice but if you look at the pictures of the carport before the ones of my car, you'll notice the down pipe at the bottom left of the carport in the second last pic. That's connected to the gutter that runs the full length of that side and flows into the two 200L water butts that are in the pic too.


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## Maxtor (Feb 23, 2007)

Great work mate. :thumb:


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## jon-v8 (Jan 26, 2006)

Very nice, I like that. Well done.
All very neat and tidy and I like how it all matches in with the rest of woodwork in and around the garden.


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## Soul boy 68 (Sep 8, 2013)

Lovely work fella, wish my car had shelter like that :thumb:


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## Mikesphotaes (Jul 24, 2016)

Lovely stuff, you encouraged me to have a go myself!

Could you just explain about the "notched the posts and drove through wood bolts" bit?


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## ibiza55 (Feb 22, 2008)

If I could only persuade my Mrs, I'll show her this, its for her car, surely she cant say no after seeing yours matey, excellent work by the way.


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## X6JTM (Jul 27, 2016)

Mmmmmmm! Carport! 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## sorearms (Jun 27, 2007)

Mikesphotaes said:


> Lovely stuff, you encouraged me to have a go myself!
> 
> Could you just explain about the "notched the posts and drove through wood bolts" bit?


Thanks. I'll explain as bestI can!

What I mean by notching, if you look at the second picture on page 1, then look at the top of the posts, you'll see they have chunks cut off them, that's the notches, we then slotted the rails into those notched parts and trimmed the tops so they were all the same height . This helps as the posts are able to spread the load of the weight better so there's therefore less stress. In reality the roof weighs very little but it's still the best way of doing it. We then drove wood bolts (basically a thick wood screw with a head like a normal bolt) with an impact driver into the posts. A socket or spanner would do it too but an impact driver is much faster. By doing it that way, should I ever need to take it down or change the posts etc. It all comes apart very easily.

I hope this helps you a little.


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## sorearms (Jun 27, 2007)

ibiza55 said:


> If I could only persuade my Mrs, I'll show her this, its for her car, surely she cant say no after seeing yours matey, excellent work by the way.


Thanks very much. Good luck persuading her. I'm so glad I done it and it's already proved its worth as far as I'm concerned. Keep nagging, she'll either let you have it.

Or plot to kill you


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## Mikesphotaes (Jul 24, 2016)

sorearms said:


> Thanks. I'll explain as bestI can!
> 
> What I mean by notching, if you look at the second picture on page 1, then look at the top of the posts, you'll see they have chunks cut off them, that's the notches, we then slotted the rails into those notched parts and trimmed the tops so they were all the same height . This helps as the posts are able to spread the load of the weight better so there's therefore less stress. In reality the roof weighs very little but it's still the best way of doing it. We then drove wood bolts (basically a thick wood screw with a head like a normal bolt) with an impact driver into the posts. A socket or spanner would do it too but an impact driver is much faster. By doing it that way, should I ever need to take it down or change the posts etc. It all comes apart very easily.
> 
> I hope this helps you a little.


Right, got you now, thought you meant something at ground level when the posts eventually rot.


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## todds (Feb 17, 2015)

lovely looking job on the carport. its a credit to you. thanks for posting.


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## Paul08 (Jun 1, 2014)

I'm not sure how I haven't seen this topic before now. The carport looks really great, thanks for sharing. I'm hoping to Build a lean to one on the side of my garage next year and hopefully add some gates to the front and essentially make it into a wooden garage. I'll probably do what you have done before setting the posts into concrete!


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## AdamC (Jan 31, 2013)

I missed this when you first posted as well.
Great effort with the car port. Doesn't look out of place at all like some can.
Jealous of your E46 as well, she's a beauty.


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