New Patio Roof added without wind tie-down improved at the house connection

New patio roof additions have become very popular in Australian cities. Stratco Outback, Spanline roofs and Altec Patios have been marketing the benefits of a covered outdoor entertaining space for some time now.

Unfortunately some of these systems and other more conventional patio roof extensions (as pictured) have not been designed/installed well to accommodate the additional roof sail area tie-down restraint forces required to keep the new roof in place during high wind storm events.



A common error in this situation is the reliance on the existing fascia board.  This may not provide sufficient capacity to transmit wind forces applied from the new roof rafters or roof sandwich panel cladding into the ends of the existing roof rafter/truss ends.  The existing fascia was only originally intended to support some guttering so its connection to the roof truss ends will not be expected to be ready for significant structural loads.

The next common design/installation defect is the inadequate existing wind tie-down for the additional new roof sail area.  Assuming the fascia connection is improved and the uplift forces can be transmitted into the existing roof truss/rafter ends, the original existing roof tie-down within the external wall is likely to require some improvement in its tie-down restraint capacity (two roof areas are now held down by this wall).  Similarly the existing wall top plate could become over-stressed without additional tie-down rods added.

Without the access to install new tie-down rods, or improve the top plate this situation can be remedied with new supporting columns for tie-down along the face of the existing external wall.  These new external tie-down columns can be fixed to a pole plate fixed to the fascia so that a reliable load path for the addition tie down can be made.