help with outdoor living

8 years ago

Here are a couple pictures. The original door was on the inside of the "u" shaped patio. We have moved the door to look straight out to the backyard, as you see in the picture. We want a covered patio so we can put a tv and furniture under it, with fans and/or heaters. Our thought is to rip out the wood deck and do a concrete deck, so most of the patio will be a bit lower than what you see, the only high post will be at the steps in front of the door.

One major hold back is that we do not want to attach the cover to three house because we don't want to pull permits (which I believe is required in Dallas, TX) if we attach anything structural to the house.

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Comments (4)

Devin Darnell
Original Author
8 years ago
Oh, the new siding is hardie board, and yes a window is gone because it was a false window to a bathroom that we covered up in bathroom remodel.
Devin Darnell
Original Author
8 years ago
Sorry, the dimensions of the "u" is 13 feet across x10 feet deep
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Revolutionary Gardens
8 years ago
In most areas you need to pull permits if you're building any kind of permanent roofed structure - attached or detached - and being in a major metro area I would have to assume you do too. Otherwise you could build something like a pool pavilion with no permits, which I really doubt.

I'd rather see it attached to your house for a number of reasons:
1. properly design it will look like an extension of your home's architecture and not a new, tacked-on roof cover
2. if not attached, you will either have a gap between the end of the house and the start of the roof (yay wet hot dog buns!) or else it'll have to be high enough to hang over the house roof, which can look weird and, on resale, will raise a major red flag with any decent inspector
3. structural stability. The enemies of every open-sided roof structure are lateral movement and uplift, and you guys definitely see some serious weather events there. Your engineer will thank you for having a structure to attach to and stiffen the roof structure.
Just my .02
smit2380
8 years ago
It has been a few years since I have lived in Dallas, but I believe that a patio cover permit only has to be pulled if it covers less than 200 square feet (or if you are in certain historical districts, etc.) Depending on how much electrical you are adding for fans, tvs, etc., it is possible that you may need to pull a permit. http://dallascityhall.com/departments/sustainabledevelopment/buildinginspection/Pages/building_inspection_faqs.aspx#A1

Please note that I support pulling permits, and have always had positive permitting experiences in every jurisdiction in which I have lived. Permitting sometimes saves us from doing stupid things.

If you are wanting the patio cover super close to the house, I agree with everything Revolutionary Gardens said. Personally, I prefer to have a large patio and the patio cover (pergola, pavilion, whatever) beginning a little bit away from the house (multiple feet), so that it does not steal all of the light from the interior of the house. We have a small patio cover attached to house, but our "main" outdoor living space is a freestanding pavilion maybe 10 feet from the side of the garage. We like this better.