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I'm planning to build a pergola in our garden and was planning a corner pergola with 2 walls, with a 'roof' made up of timbers, and maybe some trellis on the walls.
Was planning to use 4" fence posts for the uprights and then 2" x 4" wood for the 'roof'. Will the fence posts be strong enough to support all this timber (and posisble climbing children) or should I go for 6" posts that I could also hang a hammock on, but a bit more expensive and heavier work.
The sides will be 1.8m to fit standard Trellis panels.
This is the sort of thing I was thinking of =
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4" posts will be fine.
I built this with 4" posts, 6x2 joists and 3x2 infill.
[img] https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/m52k--qo3asuwFeEYFnHaNnqGSTwd7i7Vpc_dGLo7UQ=w844-h633-no [/img]
[img] https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/nCVGRNhLGKqROs9XDuj-EmugNbS9z6D4JkZAT0GQJY4=w844-h633-no [/img][img] https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/auPc6CZCzy8QglbDuTddsBCEZyEwGW5e1WBrQ6Fn2bU=w844-h633-no [/img]
it now has a very happy wysteria clambering all over it.
Will the fence posts be strong enough to support all this timber
in compression they can support several tonnes!
I used 4" posts on my corner pergola too, seated in brick supports with linking walls/seat - no problem at all, really strong and supports itself fine.
4" Will be fine. Im currently building a 3.6m x 3.6m tiled roof gazebo and i'm using 6" posts on some galvanised bases I made at work.
[url= https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5329/17823037002_5a4e6b3233_h.jp g" target="_blank">https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5329/17823037002_5a4e6b3233_h.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/t9XHXq ]Untitled[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/andysredmini/ ]andysredmini[/url], on Flickr
That's the size of a house!
That is lovely, but yes, huge! Did it need planning?
I would say 4" will be enough to hang a hammock on if you are building a structure that is braced top and bottom as you show. Look at the size of the 6" ones above!
I built a temporary lambing shelter out of some 10ft 3" posts I had lying around and it was bloomin solid enough to survive winds up on the top of the hill with a tarp as a roof.
It is quite big!
Believe it or not but all that area was covered by overgrown bushes when we moved in and we didn't fully appreciate how wide the garden was.
When we first moved in the garden had been left to overgrow massively.
It looked like this on the sale brochure before we moved in.
The gazebo above is built where the pergola was and extends right up to the fence. When we cleared the area there was around 8 foot behind the gazebo until the fence so we lost no garden space by building the big gazebo.
[url= https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/268/18555326953_2be5e3a1f6_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/268/18555326953_2be5e3a1f6_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/ugEUfe ]old gazebo[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/andysredmini/ ]andysredmini[/url], on Flickr