In addition, the home’s existing 6/12 roof uses trusses, so Brown needed to determine if and how he could cut them off. That decision necessitated extending the wall plane to the new 1圆 roof decking while also closing the cut-off eave ends in a tidy fashion. The aesthetics are subjective, but Brown and the homeowners agreed to remove it underneath the new roof. The existing roof-the eave specifically-is the tricky point. Then going with a beam depth of eight inches, a roof pitch of 3/12, and a 2圆 roof structure, we could determine this new roof's contact and bearing points onto the existing roof.” “We first calculated a sightline clearance height. “Again, this is illustrated in a cross-section view,” he says. “A cross-section view of this option shows that the combination of a low ledger height, minimal roof slope, and the depth of the supporting beam will block the views from the dining area,” Brown explains.įrom exploring the options in the cross-section views, Brown determined, 'A better option will be to use the supporting post and beam structure but work backward from a beam height that preserves the view.” He determined that doing so would limit the sightlines from inside the house. The patio roof design processĪs the first and probably the easiest option, Brown considered installing a ledger under the eave for a simple shed-roof structure.

The homeowners asked Brown to design and build a roof for the exposed patio, which sits outside the dining room, so he considered the options. “This patio is essentially unusable on a sunny summer afternoon,” Brown says. That’s the case designer-builder Peter Brown faced at the Cook residence in Bozeman, Montana. A bare, uncovered patio facing west will often feel exposed and uncomfortable, especially during sunny afternoons.

Tying roof rafter to walls