RENDITIONS OF THE ARBORIDICULOUS

You can fool some of the people all the time.
You can even fool all of the people some of the time.
But you're not fooling Mr. Deck, not even one of the times.

Here's a structure claimed as an "arbor". Any remodeling contractor can see that this is just a hip-roof framed with 1x6 skip-lath for cedar shakes, set upon 4 corner posts of double 2x4's which will serve as corner-framing for a stud-wall enclosure later! There is even a skylight curb framed-in at the pinnacle. But there's no bracing on the front side as there would be if it were really an arbor.

California Realtor: "Now over here is your game room with just a marvelous view" (quote from Realtors Anonymous).

It was there last time I looked !

Here's an arbor that won't be standing after the first gale wind! It's not big enough to house a spa. Couldn't even put a 3½ ft. dia. table with chairs. Maybe just 2 table-chairs would fit.

It's either a budget structure or an after-thought.

Done by the same builder as above.

Probably could bring it inside before a big storm.

Physics Corner

Mount a paper dispenser on the side,
put a bucket under it
and you'll be all set to go.

Oh, a curtain, too, might be in order.

And don't forget to put your arms through the squares
so you don't pop through the top.
(For every action, there is an equal
and opposite reaction -- Physics 101.)

You've got to be kidding

This all-vinyl arbor in Ocala, Florida just up and vanished during hurricane Rita.

Some parts were found intact in the Bahamas or maybe that cheap lattice is just being discarded everywhere.

Why do sundials work ?
Many times I get asked to build an arbor like this that is conforming to the edge of the patio beneath it. This is ridiculous because the sun is not directly overhead except for only 1 hour during a few mid-summer days.  That's exactly the time and season when this photo was taken. A little contrived ?

People think that if the patio is curved, the arbor should be curved. Here, the triangle formed by the beams and the lath dominate the curved edge of the canopy. This is an experiment best avoided.

Looks like half a toilet lid to me!

Another toilet-lid canopy

This is a hollow aluminum arbor with Styrofoam inserts and a 6 foot overhang. Just what do you think will happen to that overhang in 60 mph wind?

 Toilet lids up!

Yet another toilet-lid canopy
This time with the toilet bowl included.

Made from same hollow aluminum
with Styrofoam inserts.

Just flush it.

Jumble-Joists

Use Saniflush and forget it.

Again, here's another one of those toilet lids. Only this time, an attempt was made to have the joists appear to be radial but that got complicated near the center where a number of joists are mounted to the center joist and not to the rear beam like the others.

Making the joists truly radial would have put the joists too close together at the center of the back beam .

From a structural point of view, the chosen scheme works. From an architectural point of view, it doesn't -- it's a joist-jumble in the center.

This stuff just doesn't work on a triangular-beam arrangement and is best avoided.

You can just imagine what the patio below looks like: .... the right half of a toilet lid to me.

Built for half-asses with sunglasses.

Oops!

Another round canopy over a round patio. It's unbalanced -- overhang's different on each end. It's not symmetric -- joists run from left to right.

Looks like meringue pie after an earthquake.

The sky is falling !!!

And get this: the designer of this roof is a registered architect !! This example just shows there's no guarantee of competence, even with certified experts.

Roofs are gabled for a reason -- in a gabled roof there's a peaked ridge running down the middle to deflect rainwater over to the edges. Not only that, but cumulative debris such as fallen leaves, twigs, seed pods etc. will also fall away to the sides.

Or: The flying saucer house

It just goes to show how insane some people can be, even the contractors who built these things. How about having that for the house next door. Caveat emptor: Never buy a house next to an empty lot unless you buy that lot too!

Just Got Stuck With It

"Yea, one morning we heard this big thud, just about shook the house down and when we looked outside, there it was, just sticking right there out of the wall !"

 This "thing" looks like a wing off a stealth fighter. Since their homeowners insurance didn't cover damages resulting from acts of war it was cost-effective to just put posts under it and call it an arbor.

 "Boy, talk about some people just being  plane 'lucky'!"

When does a "loft" become aloft?

Here's another failed attempt in the round
to make it mimic something on the ground.

It's awaiting it's propeller mount
and off it will go
with house in tow.

This photo clearly shows the folly of doing this -- see where the shadows are? Why the umbrella under the arbor? Even the shadows cast by the irregular lath look ridiculous. Makes  me dizzy.

Now, just look at this arbor! It has a single canopy with mismatched sections -- half of its rafters are shorter than the other half !! And that happened because the designer tried to match the irregular patio below it. Not only that, but the attempt used straight edges to match curved ones.

Nobody is going to make the connection with the patio below. The symmetrically located matching doors dominate that patio any day. Observers are just going to conclude that this arbor looks weird.

This time it's dimpled rather than pimpled. Look at the shadow it casts. Does that follow the patio's contour? So what's the point?

Same deal but slant-slatted

Not only does this arbor follow the patio-line but the joists and slats are actually off-set at an angle neither perpendicular nor parallel to the house in order to make it all work with a collinear beam.

The buyer got screwed when the arbor went skewed.

No rhyme or reason for this. Maybe the patio is shaped like the canopy, but its 2-brick high border defines the shape below the arbor.

Looks like an eclipse that doesn't quit.

Just look at that ragged canopy. It's another attempt to follow the patio's contour. Look at the shadow below. Does that canopy match the patio? The biblical precept "as above, so below" does just not apply here. Here's my advice: "as below, never go".

Belongs in Razorback Hell if you ask me.

Getting all squiggly with it!

Here's another one of those corrugated-edge canopies. At least the arbor-builder ran the 2x2 lath correctly as differentiated from the arbor just above. From the yard it looks like he didn't have his chalk-line with him and just winged it.

Reminds me to floss every night.

Can't Put The Past Behind

"To tell you the truth, ever since pa moved us all over here to suburban Portland I just got nostalgic for those old telephone poles."

Boob-Boob-de-Dupe

I just see no reason at all why this arbor has two semicircular protrusions at each end. Craftsmanship is good, but the design is incongruent with the house architecture. Clearly this patio-cover was designed from a Top-View drawing by someone who likes to spin a drafting compass.

Too big bumps does a bra draw. (Architecture 101)

Muted Boop-Boop

Here's another one of those Playtex arbors, only it's a size A.

Size B

Just Weird

Conforms to the perimeter of the patio below it for the space it covers. But the canopy is unbalanced and the lath goes in different directions on the same plane. There's just no consideration given to architectural design principles.

Looks like a gathering storm or something out of Galactica.

From Swatter to Blotter

Here's two patio-covers designed to conform to the landscaper's whimsical patio contours. The upper one looks like a fly-swatter. The lower one looks like an ink-run left on a blotter.

Both photos were published by the same builder. The designs most likely were at the insistence of the customers because this builder also has many very nicely designed patio-covers on his website.

This kind of thing results from making the structure's top-view in the plans look good in relation to the existing ground-scape. But any 3-dimensional incongruence of a curved structure with the house cannot be detected at all from 2D drawings. It takes a designer with good spatial relations ability and design training to prevent this kind of thing from happening.

The top-view in the design plans is not the actual perspective of the person on the ground. The viewer stands on the ground, looks up and sees the house beyond the arbor, not the patio below it on the ground.

It would have been much better in each instance to have the contour of the canopy conform to the roof-lines of the house. And that would mean a rectangular or 3D canopy or series of rectangular shapes at different heights, particularly in the second instance.

Here's the principle: For the regular polygons, square, hexagon and octagon, and also a rectangle, it's OK to match the canopy to the patio. For regular odd polygons, triangle, pentagon and heptagon and for any regular polygon higher than an octagon, use a circular canopy of constant radius. Use a circular canopy over a circular patio. Avoid matching any other patio configuration.

There, you have it; no need to swat blot over it anymore.

Thru the Cooker Lens

This arbor contains a domed skylight in the center of an already open-lath canopy -- totally useless for any reprieve from the sun. Isn't that what one would want out there at the edge of the pool on a hot sunny day?  Maybe it's meant to concentrate the sun, not filter it.

 
For those who want an accelerated  tan.

A Real Basket Case

Well, you get what you pay for. Builder boasted it took him a total of only 6 days to build this patio-cover. But it's not speed that counts, it's appearance. It's canopy and valance are made from cheap prefab lattice. Note too that the canopy ends where the posts do. At least the builder put bases on the posts to hide the brackets.

It's still
DOA

The Best is Yet to Come

This is not an arbor. It's an incomplete pyramidal roof. But it is presented as a completed work. This is even a more blatant case of calling it something it isn't than the very first case above. Either it gets a solid roof or 2x2 lath all around or it's a case of "no overhead".

Clearly Topless

Topless Again

Now here's another one. This gives no shade over the entry way whatsoever. Despite the double rafters, it still looks unfinished to me.

If you want to see how this style arbor could be done, see the Rodriguez Project.

This is framed like a gabled roof over an interior room -- see all the ceiling joists? The birds really love that elevated flat stuff -- and you know what they do on their perches.

Might as well raise free-range chickens.

"Roger 419 ... You are cleared for descent."

This arbor, just by its shape, appears to be in flight. With the nose in front, it appears to be gliding from right to left.

It's shaped on the rear side like the deck below it . The problem with this matching of the arbor to the deck's perimeter is that the arbor is just too narrow on the back side.

This could have been remedied by extending the rear side of the arbor beyond the deck so that the central rear segment dominated the two diagonally-cut corners. The supporting structure could still stand as is. Now it's too late to be salvaged from the ridiculous.

Might as well give it matching tail fins on both ends and let the kids play Red Barron on it; saves buying a play set.

It's a bird ! No, it's a plane ! No, its Super-Train.

Talk about the new levitation-trains -- it looks like it's not only jets that will be leaving contrails in the sky !

Another railroad trestle !!

What's wrong with this design is that the canopy's width is smaller than the beams below it. As it is, it looks like an elevated railroad track.

This is a result of the beams being run incorrectly - they should have been run in the opposite direction as in the photo below. 

The correct way to do it.

Just for Starters       

I'll bet their neighbors just love that one!

I'll also bet that this do-it-yourselfer is a scoutmaster too.

"Well, we are putting away $20
every payday for our next one".

Might as well put that $20 in an IRA.

With the cost of energy skyrocketing, the outsourcing of educated Americans' jobs to India, the runaway illegal immigration from Mexico, the 40% custom duties on Canadian lumber, this is where middle class America is headed.

This is clear evidence that, along with global warming, residential downsizing has already begun. And it may just be a harbinger of affordable housing in California.

Next, the only thing California will be exporting are its realtors to AbuDabi. That's when we'll know for sure that the end of suburban life as we've known it in the Golden State is drawing nigh. Then Mr. Deck will become
Mr. Duck -- Showpiece Rafts and Barges.

Gettin' all twiggy with it

I just knew this was going to be an unstoppable trend.

 No lath; no shade.

When Ya Gotta Go,Ya Gotta Go

Here's the real situation: The canopy was to receive corrugated panels -- that's the way the frame is built for this stuff. But I ask, why was this arbor left incomplete but represented otherwise? If someone else was to complete the canopy, then why not come back and photograph the finished product? As a finished arbor, it's ridiculous.

I'm late. I'm late -- for a very important date. No time to say "Hello".  Good by. I'm late -- I'm late -- I'm late.

Thunder Dome

It's said that if you build a better mousetrap,
    people will flock to your door.
But if you build a better "man-trap",
  they'll be sending you off to war.

Bye Bye American Pie

Something Mr. Deck will never build -- a wedge-shaped arbor. I see these structures all over the place stuck in backyard corners. This is ridiculous because it looks ridiculous. It's a cheap arbor. Best to stay away from this design altogether. If you're interested in this kind of arbor, call  Angle Arbors, Delta Decks or Tri-Fangle Fences.

Barber's Arbor

Here's another triangular arbor -- only this one's not relegated to the back corner of the yard. Although this may appear different from the one above, it's an identical arbor,  just seen from a different angle.

From the front side it's appearance is just as ridiculous as the first one. Here the back side lath  was trimmed at an acute angle. From the ground it looks like a bristly crew-cut.

Which way to San Jose

See the shadow of that triangular canopy upon the pool apron? Triangular arbors are the most useless construct for shade. Except for at most 1½ hours during midday, the sun comes in from an angle and that angle only increases in the afternoon. It's merely a cheap monument.

In this setting, a circular arbor is most appropriate. In deed, the Orgill arbor would be the appropriate monument here. If it's shade you want, then the Mount Madonna arbor would be most appropriate. But neither of them is cheap like this corner cutter.

Looks like one of those airplane direction signals as seen from the ground.

CYA

This arbor was designed by a landscape architect from the topside with no consideration as to how it would appear from below. The photo from below was taken so that the the busy herringbone pattern of the 2x2 lath was conveniently hidden by one of the diagonal beams.

Architecturally, there are just too many directions of boards in the canopy. And the double diagonal cross-beam is off center from the true diagonal of the lath's bi-directional interface. Consequently the engineering conflicts with the design.

This is a case of working it out as you go and then covering your tracks.

Latitudes and Longitudes near the Poles

I was blown away when I came across this photo in a landscape contractor's website portfolio of arbors.

Looks like the catwalks I used to build as a teenager in the Alleghany woods of Pennsylvania from scavenged material when I didn't know about measuring tapes and squares.

Busy Buzzy Business  

Here's an arbor whose canopy is a radial fan of joists topped by diagonal lattice.  The radial fan is centered around a protruding wall corner in the interior making the radial joist to the far left misalign with the house. On top of the lattice there is a series of 1x3 furring strips run perpendicular to each wall to hold the lattice in place. Then there are those triangular kneebraces filled with diagonal lattice. The whole thing looks weirder than a corner web weaved by a spider after a bee-sting.

Comin' to the end
going 'round the bend

Again, the canopy was designed to conform to the round patio below.  But this construct centers the canopy around the corner of a room-extension. When viewed from either side straight-on, one sees a piecewise curved corner at one end and a square corner at the other, a visual mismatch. To look right, the round portion should have been made a separate canopy on a different plane than the two rectangular parts. As it is, it looks as weird as a corner spider web without the corner.

What's wrong with this picture?

If the purpose of arbor wasn't to provide shade for the window and glass door, why was it built so near the house? Here the contractor paid no attention of the orientation of the house with respect to the sun. If he did, the closely-spaced joists, which are the elements that would actually block the sun here, would have been run toward the house, not parallel to it.

Pretty but pretty useless.

Oh really?

See that front corner of the L-shaped canopy? Just how long do you think that corner 2x2 lath supported by just the diagonal 2x2 perched on the end of a 2x4 will last? That could be shot off with a garden hose in a second. Not the way to do the corner lath of an L-shaped canopy.

Just what the Hell was this builder thinking? Photo op?

Look closely here

1. End radial cross-piece is way out on the edge of the corbel-end of the curved joists.

2. The curved joists end too near the supporting end stub-beams.

3. The curved joists are way too thin (2x6's) for the distance spanned and will eventually sag between posts.

The builder underestimated the length and thickness of the curved joists and came up short on 3 levels.

Click here to see the proper way to do this.

What's wrong with this picture?

See that  4x8 beam scabbed onto a double 2x10 beam across the front? Why is that?

I'll tell you why: the building inspector didn't buy the double 2x10 beam. But the double 2x10 beam is adequate, so both the inspector and the acquiescent builder are at fault; the inspector because he is incompetent, and the builder for not standing up to him when he should because he is right.

That turned a potentially  routine arbor into a crap job. Looks ridiculous.

How about all that
flat-grain?

These two photos are pictures of arbors claimed to have been done separately by the same builder. In fact, they're one and the same arbor. Let me explain:

Note the flat-grain in all the timbers. The prominent graininess in both arbors is the consequence of pressure-washing an old arbor.

The painted arbor above was already pressure-washed and repainted at least one time before the landscaper came onto the scene; it's the before photo. Then the landscaper pressure-washed it again when the new landscaping was installed; photo to the left is the after photo.

He is now presenting the pictures as two different arbors because the landscaping has changed -- with the implication that he built both of them, one just recently because it's not painted yet. He didn't build the unpainted one because it was already there and he didn't build the earlier one because it's an old arbor from long ago.

Bull shit dude! You're not fooling Mr. Deck.
 

Looks like an onion-slicer to me

I have no idea why the roof is split-level but to look right small structures should appear balanced. Maybe there's solar panels hidden on the backside of the higher sloped section. Or maybe the owners wanted to see the stars at night from a covered spa. In any case, it's function dominating form and it sure looks ridiculous.

If it's really a Guillotine in disguise, heads will roll.

Spider loose in the neighborhood

Did anyone give any thought to how the shadow of these canopy designs would look against the house? Either the canopies should be designed to cast a broader shadow, or be covered, or the entire arbor should be relocated to Transylvania.

 To bad Halloween is celebrated at night.

What in hell is this?

It's a case of nowhere to put the 8th post.

 The owners could rightly collect on their homeowners insurance: looks like an arbor wreck to me.

Clash of the Tightspans

Here's a straight 3-segment arbor alongside a curved edge of the pool. To justify it's straightness in that curved environment, the joists were given a radial perspective in each segment relative to the curve of the pool's edge. So the end result is that each adjacent segment's end-joists run into each other at the front end. Not only does that look ridiculous, the shadows look ridiculous too. This is clearly the work of an amateur.

It just amazes me how anyone can walk away from this architectural "thingy" convinced he accomplished something good.

Oh my, it's built to fly !

This is an enormous gabled canopy set upon the eave's edge, high up! The roofing is predominantly white corrugated fiberglass panels. It's design is an airfoil -- just as is the wing of an airplane -- because of the opposing slopes of the canopy's gabled roof, the solidity of the roofing panels and the open underside. Not only that, but there is no lateral bracing for the front side supported by posts -- the intersecting railing does not provide that. By the time you read this, a gale wind will have already taken this one out.

This is the "before" picture.

To see the right way to do it , Click here.

What is wrong with this?

1. It's a lot of weight for the roof.

2. It's way too hefty and outside of the character of the house.

3. There is no diversion of water around the beams placed right on the shingles with the end-grain exposed.

4. It introduces a third parallel ridge-line  where there are already two, one on each side --  like rows of greenhouses.

5. A high wind from one side could knock this arbor off its side perches.

 Here's where the owners would have been justified if they had just said, "NIMBY".

Full of shallow cuts.

In order to make a grid from exposed 2x8s, every board was cut halfway through at many intervals across its entire length. A notch is made at every crossing in the grid. This will get wet time and again and stay damp for long periods after everything else becomes dry. And that makes every intersection an incubator for moss and mildew, Eventually that will rot the entire canopy.

The remedy is to caulk every crossing and then paint the entire canopy by hand and with a roller to get a thick coating. And that takes about 3 days to do because the caulking takes a half a day. The caulk must cure overnight before receiving paint. A latex heavy-solids primer needs to be applied before the final coat, so that's a second day. And a third day is required for the latex finish coat to be applied because the primer needs to dry.

And time is money. That's why most builders don't want to be bothered with it. Click here to see it done right.

Like I said, "full of short-cuts".

Wimpy Skimpy

I have no problem with the canopy's design, it's the skimpyness of the elements. Those single-board curved beams will shortly split along the grain. I was recently hired to repair an arbor built similar to this one by the landscaper himself. The problem is that it's not robust enough for the design. I'll not reveal any of my trade secrets here. You figure it out.

Architects are
Kacky-pants farts

←Big-deal designer
group in New Jersey.

Mr. Deck→

A Bump on the Bluff

Review this Mr. Deck project to see an arch done at the correct angle of incidence:
Wingartner project -- big difference.

Here's how one builder spanned a large distance between two posts that were just too distant from each other to be spanned by one continuous beam. He placed one beam across two smaller beams and bolted the top beam to the lower ones. To give it some design he cut an arch in the two bottom beams and rounded-off the top beam. This may be acceptable from an engineering standpoint but it's not acceptable from an architectural one. Here's why:

To be properly balanced visually, the bases of any arch should intersect the beams at an angle that is the average between vertical (90º) and horizontal (0º) and that is 45º. The angle of incidence in the photo is about 25º and that's 20º too shallow. The arbor here was done by an amateur because doing a 45º arch is much more complicated and takes some know-how to accomplish.

What have we got?

Looks great. But its location out in the yard covered by trees near a lake and its embellishment with drapes and hanging planters creates a big maintenance problem.

Did anyone give consideration to all the spiders and their web-making that will occur every night, day after day? How long do you think this picturesque setting will remain picturesque?

 We have woven our web and that's what we wrought.

Crossroads

Glover's Grove's that away
Noogy's Road's over yonder's way
Crowley's Field's just up a ways 
Cliptoplum's back there's away 
Frakenfrom's this away 
Rumberglutton's down there's a way

Looks like one of those country back-roads directories.

This beam has been spliced

This beam is going to get wet in the vertical splices from the top and will eventually get dryrot and become warped. The splice line is as weak as half the beam and is a potential point of failure. And all that wooden weight over head doesn't make this safe.

And its a roll of the dice

Here’s an arbor with a spliced beam (1).

Here’s what I think happened: The builder wanted to hide the pole attachment to the beam, so the top of pole was fitted with a vertical plate. This plate has been sandwiched between the darker beam on the left and a cut-away section of the lighter beam on the right to hide it. Both of the beam segments were notched vertically and then sandwiched around the hidden vertical plate.

See the breach in the beam right above the pole? To hide the poll’s horizontal top-plate, a smaller width beam (2) was used on the left and a 2x6 was fastened to its bottom, spliced around the pole and then extended underneath the thicker beam on the right for 2 feet or so. The beam on the right has been notched horizontally along its bottom to receive this 2x6.

This is a klugey way to handle this situation and is evidence of the builder’s limited experience, not his artisanship.

Trolley Deck

This patio arbor has diverging beams because the posts are not aligned squarely. And that's because the square patio-deck below was diagonally truncated at one corner for a step up so there was no room for a corner post.

Not only that but the front beam has its ends contoured and the rear beam is left straight-cut. The same can be said for the rafters on top.

And then those bellman rope railings!

If this contraption went skittering down a hill-side street in San Francisco, no one would look twice. Ding, dingaling, dingaling.

Above the Builder's Mentality

Beyond the builder's reach

I can only surmise that the landscape contractor behind this structure was working another job somewhere else while his inexperienced employees placed the columns on 8-foot centers. Then they discovered that they only had 8-foot long boards with which to build the canopy. With the columns now set, they proceeded to construct the 8x8 canopy as designated.

Once the canopy was constructed, they discovered that it only extended to the posts' centers. Then, when the contractor finally came around to see what

He must have convinced both himself and the customer that it was what they had ordered: after all it did measure 8x8. But then he had the gall to post it on his website as an example of his expertise.

Not only should the corners of the canopy never terminate abruptly at the corner columns, but it's just absurd to terminate the canopy in the middle of the columns where it is supported by only 1/4 of the column's capital.

Here's where a contractor's aspiration became someone's aspirination.

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