A Carport To Save You Time

Carports can come in a variety of different shapes and sizes and can be made from a variety of different materials to fit your driveway and your budget. However, the key component of any carport is the protection that they provide year round to save you time. They really come into their own during the winter months, sheltering your car from the seemingly endless snow and ice storms. You can add an extra layer of protection with vinyl or plastic sidings to avoid ice buildups around the base of your car. Starting the day with a clear car saves you time and helps you get on the road quicker, giving you a few more warm minutes in your home. During the warmer months, a carport can save you time by giving you a place to store your outdoor gardening equipment. Having your hoses, rakes and spades hanging in one place will make your carport a convenient home base for your yard work, as well as giving you a shaded spot to take a break during the hotter Calgary days.

A Carport To Add Value

Just like any outdoor home improvement project, installing a carport doesn’t automatically mean that your home is worth more. It doesn’t add to the square footage of your home, and doesn’t give potential buyers a new room or better features. However, what it does do is increase the curb appeal of your home; that first impression that people see when they’re looking at photos of your home or driving past to check out the neighbourhood. What they’ll see is a convenient place for their car next to their home as well as an opportunity for outdoor storage. This will make them be willing to pay more as it will look like a luxurious upgrade. 

Additional Features For Convenience and Return On Investment

You can take a couple of easy steps to upgrade your carport to make it more convenient for you and to boost the value it adds to your home. Simply adding electrical outlets will make a massive difference as you can charge everything from your outdoor tools to your electric vehicle, all with a solid roof over your head. Add in some built storage so it has a hybrid garage feel to it, and you could be looking at a 5% increase in the sale price of your home. 

Why Choose Cost Effective DIY Carport Plans

A carport can seem like a significant upgrade to your property given its size and presence next to your house. However, with DIY carport plans, you can get the year round convenience of a carport without breaking your budget. It’s worth looking at a variety of different carport designs so that you can make sure that you’ll be building a carport to fit your needs and your budget. Here’s some of the ways that using DIY carport plans can save you money in the long run with your carport project:

• Adapt to your property – the first and most obvious way to save money with DIY carport plans is that you can take them and adapt them to the shape of your home and driveway. While the plans will map out the dimensions of their suggested carport, you can easily make some edits and changes if you need it to be slightly longer for a bigger car, or somewhat narrower to fit in the gap between your house and the lawn. This can save you money as you’ll only pay for what you need. 
• Customized materials – there are plenty of different options when you’re choosing the materials for your new carport, and choosing DIY carport plans means that you can change or mix and match the materials to meet your budget and aesthetics. For example, if you’re looking for a cheaper option, you can make the whole thing from aluminium and vinyl which will give a more lightweight carport. For something more durable and rugged, you could use treated lumber to make it feel like a pergola on your driveway. 

Hands on labour – probably your biggest savings when it comes to choosing to use DIY carport plans is that you’re not paying for anyone else’s labour. Of course, when you work with a carport contractor, you’re paying for their expertise and to save yourself the time and effort of not building it yourself. However, if you’ve got the right set of tools, plenty of time and a willingness to follow clear instructions, then getting a set of DIY carport plans allows you to build your dream structure without breaking the bank.

What Is A Carport?

You’ll probably have seen a carport as you’ve driven around Calgary even if you didn’t know that’s what it was called. A carport is a simple post and beam structure that sits over the top of your vehicle/s. It always has a solid roof, and typically is open on the sides which keeps the weight down, and means that you can install the whole thing directly on top of your driveway in next to no time. You can choose from a free standing carport which can sit anywhere on your property to give full winter coverage to your vehicles, or a carport which attaches to your home so that you are also covered as you leave the house to get to your car.

How A Carport Helps With Winter Prep

The most obvious way that a carport helps with your winter preparation is that it shields your car from the worst of the winter storms. If you chose a freestanding carport, the solid roof will create a barrier so the snow and ice slides off around your car, saving you time and energy of scraping ice and shovelling around your tires. If you chose an attached carport, you’ll find that the shape of the carport and the proximity to your home helps keep your vehicle a little warmer making it easier to start up on those frigid mornings. You can add to the effectiveness of your carport with simple plastic sheeting hung between the posts which will provide further protection from the wind and allow you to use the carport for storage. 

More Than Just Protection

Even if a carport just kept the snow and ice off your vehicle, it would be a sound investment for your property. However, a carport offers more than just protection for your car. The solid roof provides a measure of coverage for the surrounding driveway, meaning that there’s considerably less real estate to shovel or snow blow. You’ll also find that your carport becomes a useful place to store your outdoor snow clearing equipment, meaning that your shovel and ice breaker are always at hand, as well as providing quick access to a snow blower. With all these benefits, it’s time to invest in your winter prep with a carport so that you can enjoy the best that a Calgary winter has to offer.

The Two Types of Carport

If you’ve never considered a carport before, you’ve not been thinking seriously about how to protect you and your vehicle from the snow and ice. Carports come in two main categories. The first carport type attaches to your home and will often sit next to an external door so you stay covered all the time after leaving your house. Think about it as an open sided garage where you don’t need to worry about digging foundations or expensive garage doors. The other option is a free standing carport, and this can be constructed anywhere on your property. This works better if you have to park your car out front or if your external door isn’t next to where you park the car.

How A Carport Protects You In Winter

A carport has a solid roof, and is typically made from a simple post and beam structure meaning that your carport will be able to withstand a whole winter’s worth of snow and ice, leaving your car clean and dry. A carport can also help break up the wind flow around your house which means that your vehicle is much less likely to freeze up, and should start up quicker each morning. Finally, you can install simple plastic sheets or screens to the sides of your carport to give your vehicle some extra protection from the snow as well as giving you a place to store your outside winter tools like shovels and salt for your walkways.

How A Carport Saves You Time In Winter

It’s clear to see that a carport is a quick and easy way to protect your vehicle during the winter months, but it can also save you time by drastically reducing the amount of shovelling that you have to do. It’s no secret that having to shovel the snow and ice off your car, and from the area immediately around it, is one of the worst winter chores that you face as a Calgary resident. A carport keeps this area clear of snow and saves you from having to work out how to help your car get over the rest of the icy driveway as you’ll already have built some momentum. A well designed carport can also provide further protection for your driveway so there’s less shovelling to do to keep you and your family on the road all season long.

Stay Snow Free With A Patio Cover

Your patio or deck is the last place you’ll spend time keeping clear of snow. While this isn’t a problem in the middle of winter, the accumulation of snow and ice can make it the last place to defrost in the spring. Your deck can also suffer from ice and snow slipping into the cracks between the boards and then contracting and expanding, so it makes sense to invest in a patio cover to keep the snow and ice off your patio.

How A Patio Cover Helps With Snow Clearing

A patio cover is a solid structure that either attaches to the outside of your home or sits free standing on your deck or patio and gives you coverage right up to the edge of your lawn. It’s clear to see, therefore, that it will give your outside area protection both from snowfall and from snow and ice that slips off your roof. The winter debris will fall onto your backyard where you can choose to shovel it away or just let it pile up to melt away in the spring time. You will need a long handled brush in the case of seriously heavy snow to keep your patio cover relatively clear.

Upgrade Your Patio Cover For Better Coverage

It’s also relatively easy to see the limitations of a patio cover as it pertains to protection from the worst of the winter weather. All Calgary residents know that snow rarely just floats down like in the movies, and the lack of sideways protection will see some snow drifts on your patio. For full protection, you’ll want to consider upgrading your patio cover to a screen room or a sunroom which have mesh or walls to help keep the snow on the outside of your patio.

More Snow Clearing Methods

If this scale of upgrade feels unrealistic right now, here are some more time saving methods to clear snow this winter:

• Buy a bigger shovel – if manual labour is your gig, then all you need is a shovel with a bigger scoop so you’re moving more snow with each lift. 
• Invest in machinery – having a snowblower is a great idea if you have a larger property or just hate the idea of shovelling after every storm. They even come in electric models if you don’t want to burn gasoline to clear snow!
• Hire a professional – fortunately, there are plenty of businesses across Calgary who will gladly come and do the hard snow moving work for you (for a fee, of course!), leaving you with time to enjoy how the snow transforms your property. 

How Does a Carport Work?

As soon as you see one, you’ll know what a carport does. It’s a simple post and beam structure with a solid, slanted roof which sits over the top of your vehicles. They are incredibly flexible in their design, and can either attach to your house or be free standing in your driveway depending on the amount of space you have available. They are typically made from high-quality aluminum to be able to support the weight of the full roof and any snow and ice that comes down. Quality Calgary carports are a great investment as they increase both your convenience during winter, and protection against the incoming storms. 

Carports for Convenience

If you’re looking at a carport as a way to save you time and effort during the winter months, you’ll find it to be a great investment. A carport will keep the worst of the snow and ice off your car, meaning less scraping and shovelling to get you going in the morning. If you combine it with simple measures like a windshield protector, it will feel like the snowstorm never happened as you get moving in the morning. A carport is also a convenient option as it gives you a place to store all your winter snow removal gear near your driveway or walkway, meaning that you can make a quick job of clearing the snow and getting on your way. 

Carports for Protection

The big snow storms in Calgary bring with them strong winds as well as the snow and ice. Left unprotected, your vehicle is always at risk of damage from the winter storms, whether from falling chunks of ice or branches laden with snow. A carport is a quick and easy way to protect your vehicle against whatever winter throws your way. The strong post and beam structure will support a strong A-frame roof, which will in turn be more than a match for any tree limb or chunks of ice that would otherwise damage your car. A carport will also protect you and your family from the worst of the winter weather as you’re getting into your car, especially if you’re able to build the carport so that it attaches to your home. There’s nothing more satisfying than being able to

What is a Carport?

A carport is a quick and simple addition to the outside of your home. It’s usually a very simple post and beam structure with a solid roof. In the winter, it’ll keep the worst of the snow and ice off your car, and during the rest of the year it helps to keep your car free from debris from the Calgary winds. They can attach to the side of your house if you have space, or can stand alone on your driveway, and you can make them as large or as small as you need to for the number of cars that you want to protect.

How Does a Carport Save You Time?

Carports are relatively quick and easy to install, often taking less than a couple of days from start to finish. It’s also a budget-friendly option compared to building a whole new garage addition to your home. While you can never truly balance the books on time, the initial time investment is recouped in a number of ways, including:

• No more ice scraping – there is nothing worse than waking up on cold Calgary mornings and knowing that you have to spend time before your day even begins scraping and clearing the ice from your windscreen. Even if you have an automatic car starter, you have to remember to turn the heating on the night before, and it wastes gas. A carport automatically keeps the worst of the winter off your car meaning you can snag some extra time for yourself in the morning.
• Easy storage – during the summer months, you want ready access to your gardening tools, and it can be a pain trying to manoeuvre the larger tools around the cars in your garage. A carport offers you plenty of additional storage space and the lack of walls actually works in your favour as you’ll be able to access each tool when you need it. This can be especially useful when winter comes back round again and you need your ice and snow clearing tools at hand just outside your door. 
• Less shovelling – finally, back in snow mode, a carport dramatically reduces the overall square footage of your driveway that needs to be shoveled. If you build a large, two-car carport, you’ll be amazed at how much less shovelling or snow blowing you need to undertake, which in turn gives you extra time each day to actually enjoy the winter months. 

Adding Year Round Protection

While a Calgary carport really shines when it comes to protecting your vehicle from snow and ice during the long winter months, it also helps throughout the rest of the season too. Your carport will add an extra layer of protection from sun damage, tree sap, falling branches or wind-blown debris, and in particular will save your car from bird droppings. All of these seasonal problems require cleaning and detailing, and can even lead to minor damage to your car. A carport provides year round shelter, which saves you from wasting your time washing your car and clearing off the debris.

A Faster Alternative To A Garage

If you’re looking at adding some outdoor storage and vehicle protection, your thoughts will immediately have gone to installing a full garage. A garage install is an expensive and time consuming undertaking, and while you get more protection and covered space, the whole process will take up a huge amount of time, as well as causing a fair amount of disruption as the foundations are being dug and the building is being installed. The simplistic structure of the carport means that it’s a quick and easy install, and it’s definitely doable without the need for digging a single hole, meaning that your vehicle will be covered in next to no time. 

Adapt Your Carport To Your Needs

A garage is a permanent fixture on your property. Once you’ve built it, it’s hard to change or upgrade it, which means that whatever design you choose, you have to be sure that it’s going to be one that meets your needs and saves you time over the years to come. A carport has a greater degree of flexibility in that it’s possible to extend and add to your carport as you increase the number of vehicles in your household, or simply want a little more protection and outdoor storage space. A carport saves you time and hassle in the long run by being able to adapt and grow with your family over the years.

An Addition To Your Garage

If you’ve already got a garage installed, you’ll be surprised at the advice that you should still be thinking about installing a carport (instead of tearing down your garage and starting fresh!). By installing a carport in addition to your garage, you free up that garage space as an additional space for other desirable home projects. Whether you turn your garage into a functional workshop for your home improvement projects, a home gym to save you time and money on expensive memberships, or just an extra space to store your belongings and finally declutter your home, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you find a use for your new space. Adding a carport to your property is a short investment that keeps your car protected throughout the year, while giving you a whole new space to work with, not only saving you time but breathing some fresh air throughout your entire home. 

How A Carport Protects Your Ride

In winter, more so than any other month, your car is essential to keeping you moving across the city. It’s also the most vulnerable to the cold and snow, so using a carport to protect makes sense. A carport is a permanent structure that normally attaches to the side of your house where there’s an external door. The roof slopes away from your house to carry the snow out to your yard, and even though the typical carport structure has open sides, the proximity to your home keeps the worst of the cold wind away. This shelter and protection will keep most of the snow off your car, and keep it at a warmer than average temperature so you’ll get started quicker in the mornings.

Winterizing Your Carport

Make no mistake, your carport is a great investment for each season, but it really comes into its own when the snow starts to fly. To make your carport more effective throughout the winter months, use some of these carport winterization tips:

• Keep the roof clean – as any Calgary resident who has spent even one season shoveling snow from their driveway will know, snow is incredibly heavy. Your carport roof will have been constructed to meet various building codes, and you may even have obtained a snow load certificate saying that it’s reinforced up to a certain weight of snow. However, damage can still happen with a particularly wet and heavy snow storm, so you can help protect your investment by clearing the worst of the snow and ice off after each storm with a long handled roof rake or broom. 
• Add a temporary covering – your carport is still going to be open to the elements, so you can give yourself and your vehicle an extra layer of protection by adding a canvas tarp around the edges. You can buy these sold as groundsheets for tents if you’re on a budget, or you can find full carport kits that will zip up and down giving you year round protection. 
• Check for damage – finally, your carport is only as good as its components, and even the highest quality construction will still take a beating over the course of multiple winters. You can help extend the life of your carport by checking the joints and foundations before winter hits and making any replacements and repairs as necessary.

It’s Time For a Carport

You might be one of the lucky few with attached garages on your property, but for many this is an expensive option and one that can be hard to put through the local planning laws. A carport is a cheap way to get your car the coverage it needs. They are free standing post and beam structures that go on top of your driveway and keep the worst of the winter weather away from your vehicles. They can be built to any size, and have a quick installation time as they only require the post, beams and roof to be complete. 

Top Carport Designs 

The typical carport design is a simple rectangle that covers all your vehicles. Any carport should be somewhat bigger than the footprint of your car so that you have space to get in and out, as well as reducing the overall space that you need to shovel during the winter to keep you and your family on the go all season long. There’s plenty of options to make it match the needs of your home:

• Attach it to your house – a carport has to fit into the aesthetic of your house if it’s to add any value to your selling price. For most Calgary carport owners, this means attaching the carport to your home. Not only will this allow you to blend the structure into your home, but it also means that you can save construction costs as you’ll only need to dig two posts. Make sure that you match the shingles on your roof to the design of your carport roof. 
• Add solar panels – speaking of roofing for your carport, you can make it a much more eco-friendly design by covering it in solar panels. Incorporating solar panels into your carport design is the perfect time to generate your own power as all the wiring and connections to your home’s electrical system can be done during the install process. It might also be the right time to consider adding solar panels to the rest of the roof to boost your electricity earning potential.
• Install additional storage – finally, a carport can resemble more of a traditional garage with only a little bit of extra planning. You’ll need to work out which way the wind blows on your carport site, and then find some solid outdoor storage options that will face away from the wind. This will give you a place to keep your snow shovelling gear as well as any power tools that you need for your yard work. 

Surviving the Calgary Winter

Most Calgary homeowners will choose to build their new carport during the warmer months when it’s easier to spend time outside and the ground is more compliant for anchors and digging. However, your carport really comes into its own during the seemingly endless Calgary winters. You will need to make a few edits to your carport tent design to help your new structure withstand the snow and ice. 

Roof Pitch

One of the common mistakes in many DIY carport tent designs is to build your carport with a flat roof as it’s easier to install. However, snow and ice are always surprisingly heavy, and will quickly cause problems for the integrity of a flat (or studio) carport roof especially during a period of multiple back-to-back snowstorms. To help keep your carport standing all winter long, you’ll need to pitch the roof enough so that the majority of snow and ice falls off. If your carport is attached to your home, you need to make sure the roof is sloped in one direction away from your home. If it’s free standing on your driveway, it should have an A frame look so that the snow slides off on both sides to avoid massive snowbanks and ice packs that will take forever to melt.

Reinforced Frame

Even with a sloped roof, there’s no escaping some of the heavier snow storms that will cause a build of snow and ice no matter the pitch of your carport roof. The weight of the snow over the course of a day or two can be enough to put severe pressure on the internal structure of your carport which in turn can lead to long term damage of your posts. To counteract this, you should invest in a reinforced frame as you’re creating your carport tent design. This can involve choosing a more sturdy material for your posts, or creating thicker posts with two separate structures to distribute any sudden additional weight. 

Side Panels

Finally, as any Calgary homeowner knows, snow doesn’t just drift lazily down from the sky. The combination of heavy snowfall and Calgary’s infamous winds means that it can sometimes come in sideways, so you need to design your carport to be ready for this. Full scale walls would be the ideal option, but these drive up the cost and complexity of carport tent designs, so flexible side panels are the way forward. These can be made from vinyl, plastic or tarpaulin depending on your budget and aesthetic preferences. Attaching them to your carport is easy, and you can use staples, bungees or even cable ties to make sure that they stand up to the worst of the winter weather while being quick and easy to remove once springs rolls round. 

What is a Carport Garage?

Put simply, a carport garage is a free standing cover for your vehicles. It can stand alone on your driveway, or it can be attached to your home if you have space to park your car next to your house. In either case, it provides a cheap way to keep the snow and ice off your car all winter long. It differs from a regular garage in that there are no walls or windows (think a permanent gazebo style structure), but you can still run wiring out for lighting and powering electrical tools. Some homeowners even install outdoor storage options for their outdoor power tools and yard clean up operation. 

How Does a Carport Garage Save You Money?

If you’re looking for a cheap way to add value to your home, a carport garage is a great way to get you started. It immediately adds some curb appeal, and Calgary house buyers will be able to picture the time they’ll save each morning with a covered vehicle. Carport garages can also help you save money compared to a traditional garage in the following ways:

• No foundations – a normal garage acts as an official extension of your home, and as such will require you to dig and build foundations. This can get expensive quickly. A carport on the other hand is usually a post and beam structure, meaning that you’ll only need a few holes to support the corner and side posts. 
• Cheaper materials – a normal garage is made from bricks, and the window and door costs alone can run into the thousands of dollars. While you don’t get the same 360 degree protection with a carport garage, you’ll be able to construct one cheaply. Don’t skimp money on the roofing materials however, as you’ll want to make sure it’s ready to withstand the heavy ice and snow of the Calgary winters. 
• Low maintenance – finally, if you have a regular garage, you’ll need to get the door mechanism serviced regularly, and you’ll need to worry about winter proofing the window seals each year. A carport garage requires very little maintenance from the get go, meaning you’ll be saving time and money every time that winter rolls around. 

It’s easy to see that a carport garage is a great halfway house between spending a lot of money on a full garage set up, and spending a lot of time shoveling snow off your car and defrosting it all winter long. 

Why You Should Winterize Your Carport

Even though it costs less than a full garage, a carport garage is still a financial investment in your property. If you’re looking to sell your home in the near future, you’ll want to take steps to keep your carport garage looking pristine as it’s one of the first unique features that potential buyers will see. If you’re not planning on moving any time soon, you still need to look after your carport garage so that it continues to provide protection and shelter each time that winter rolls around. Here are some easy winterization tips to keep your carport garage in peak condition:

• Keep the roof clean – when you bought your carport garage in Calgary, it’s likely that you’ll have been given a snow load certificate for the roof. This is an estimate made by the builders of how much snow weight your roof can carry before it will collapse. Anyone who has spent the day after even one Calgary snow storm shoveling snow will know how heavy it becomes, especially when mixed in with ice and debris. In a moderate to severe winter season, it’ll be important to keep your carport garage roof clear of the worst of the snow (i.e. you don’t have to spend hours scraping every last snowflake off!) to protect the roof. You can buy dedicated long handled snow rakes to make your life easier, but you can just as easily use your yard broom while standing on a stepladder to get most of the snow and ice off after each storm. 
• Reseal the timbers – most carport garages are made from solid timber posts and beams. While these give more structural integrity than their aluminum counterparts, it also makes them much more susceptible to water and wind damage throughout the winter season. You can protect against this damage by adding an extra layer of water proof sealant during fall; make sure to put it on while it’s warm enough to dry fully, and if you’ve got painted timber, you’ll likely want to find a transparent stain that doesn’t change the visual appeal of your carport garage. 
• Check for damage – finally, your carport garage is only as good as the materials that you used to make it. Even the strongest design will still suffer from the harsh Calgary winters, and you’ll find spots of rust and rot on both aluminum and wooden carport garage designs. In the same vein as resealing the timbers, you should spend a few hours before each winter season checking over your carport garage and fixing any damage that you find, even if it isn’t immediately obviously detrimental to the structural integrity.