Carport Design

Welcome to "Carporting".  We aim to be the most comprehensive carport information portal on the internet.  We created this site provide inspiration about:

• The best construction materials to use?
• The best style for your needs?
• Should you be an owner-builder?

Please find below some thoughts until our next posting.

Carport Benefits

Carports make a wonderful addition to your home.  Not only do the add value but, if done correctly, they also help to beautify your house.  What is the primary purpose of a carport?  Put simply they keep your car looking like new by minimising the amount of fade that you get on the paint work and interior.  But on top of that they also enable you to gracefully alight from your car in even the harshest of weather, whilst remaining dry and untroubled as you can empty all the children and groceries out of the car.

Construction

Carports can be made from a wide range of materials.  The most common one in my country is timber.  It is a lovely material to work with, its light, easy to cut and can be turned and sawn to create the most intricate posts and fret work to decorate your new home addition.  If you are looking for something a little more functional and less termite prone, then steel framed construction is the way to go.  If can be painted with anti-rust paint, and even better if you can afford it is to use zinc-alum or galvanized steel.  The steel posts can be made from either tubular steel of box sections, but the tubular versions lend themselves more easily to bending to make interesting shapes.

Anchor It Securely

If you don't secure your carport correctly you will not only be probably in breach of some building regulations, but also run the risk of your new carport blowing away in the first high winds.  There are lots of simple and effective ways to anchor your carport.  Points you need to consider are the posts to the footings, the roof frame to the posts, and the roofing materials to the roof frame.

Roofing Material Choices

Steel is strong, light, and easy to work with.  Tiles are heavy, expensive, and require more specialised skills to construct.  Your choice of roofing material is the most crucial decision you can make, as it will not only dictate the type and strength of framing materials, but also the design you choose.

DIY Versus Custom Built

Once you decide on the construction materials you can get an architect to draw up your design.  Once you have done that its a choice of DIY or builder.  I recommend a builder but there are lots of good carport kits available these days if you want to save design and construction costs for you new carport.

make a mistake then the savings are all gone of rectifying the problems.  For me its worth the extra cost to get my new carport built for me.