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Hi all,
Ive recently bought a property which has a 1200 mm deep north facing pergola which is a simple pergola with a deciduous grape vine.
Due to the heat and to use the top of the garden bed as entertaining area I am extending this out / north by 4000 mm - all the way across the front and over the drive.
I Will leave the existing posts and relocate / repurpose some of the roof Timbers that allow the climber to create a canopy
Thid be a simple structure nearly for the purpose of holding deciduous ornamental / non fruiting grape vine.
Beans - so you can see in the pics I have positioned fence posts where I want these new posts
The horizontal beam for the garage door ( I think it’s laminated timber) is 8 metres long / sits abutt the brick wall.
My questions
1. Beam length - I’d like 10 m beams - less posts than existing how long can the beams for the pergola be ie post to post noting this will be positioned vertically on its edge on top of the posts and won’t really be load bearing
i am wanting to
2. Beam material - suggestions - LVL laminated ???? these will be painted in Palm beach black, like the rest of the pergola ( WIP)
Ive since found this link to laminated beam lengths / down however it’s a bit too technical for me
https://wesbeam.com/Wesbeam/media/Documents/Design%20Info%20Docs/WESB0674_e-beam-Brochure-AUG24.pdf
Hi @Libbie,
It comes down to how many posts you're will to have over this 10m span. According to that span table, there are not beams capable of the 10m without support. So, say you have one post at the 5m mark, you could then use a 240 x 63mm beam.
The more posts you have, the smaller the calibre of beam you can use.
To span a larger distance, you'd typically need to go with an LVL, or you could use solid timber, but you'd probably need two posts over the 10m.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Mitchell
