Your patio has the capacity to be a unifying space on your property. It’s like the beach, providing the best of two different landscapes. On the one hand, it’s a hard surface that will support chairs, tables and even a full sized grill to help you live your best indoor lifestyle out in your yard. On the other hand, it’s an outdoor space, giving you all the fresh air, warmth and scents that sitting anywhere else in your yard gives you. The proximity to your home makes your patio a perfect “home base” for younger kids to venture from, and a great place for their supervising adults to watch the chaos gently unfold.
However, using your patio in Calgary comes with some problems, especially in the warmer months. The first obvious issue is the eternal wind that seems to blow through the city, which can bring dirt and debris onto your patio. Keeping on top of clearing your patio from this can be a pain, especially when summer feels like it’s over before it begins. The second challenge is the high temperatures in midsummer when you sit out in direct sunlight. Nothing will stop you from using your patio more than overheating, especially when the patio stones store and reflect heat back quicker than grass or a deck. Finally, you have to keep an eye on the weather, as you’ll need to cover up any patio furniture when one of Calgary’s summer storms rolls around.
Enter The Patio Cover
Fortunately, there is a way to protect you and your patio from the worst parts of a Calgary summer: a patio cover. A patio cover is exactly what it sounds like: a permanent structure that provides shade and cover to your patio. It can be a freestanding structure or attached to your home, depending on the size of patio cover that you want/need. It keeps your patio clear from debris and provides protection from the sun and rain, allowing you to use your patio all season long.
Choose Your Coverage Options
Not all patio covers are created equally, and you’ll want to find the balance between a durable patio cover that does the job well and one that fits with the aesthetic of your backyard. Here are some options to help you choose a patio cover in Calgary:
- Full cover – a full patio cover is one made from vinyl or aluminum, and provides complete protection against all the elements. You can add some design elements with the ends and the material, and you’ll always be sure of a strong, sturdy cover. A full cover patio is usually attached to your home because it’s significantly heavier than the lattice or hybrid options, and you can be limited in the overall size because of the cost of the materials. However, with a full cover patio, you know that you’ll be getting complete protection from the elements, and there are plenty of ways to make the modern design match the overall outdoor aesthetic of your home.
- Lattice cover – a lattice cover provides less protection against the sun than a full cover. However, it gives more of a dappled shade effect and feels more like a pergola if that’s the style you’re looking for. Typically, a lattice patio cover is made from vinyl as it’s easy to cut the lattice pattern in that fabric. You can build a lattice out of wooden beams which will give you more of a pergola feel to your patio cover, and in this case, you may want to consider a free standing patio cover design. A free standing lattice design gives you much more flexibility with the shape and space of your patio cover, but it will increase the cost and complexity of your project.
- Hybrid – for the perfect combination, talk to your patio cover contractor about a hybrid design, where part of the patio cover is solid and part of it is lattice. This option tends to cost more because you’re often joining together two different patio cover pieces. but is the perfect marriage of durability and design. A hybrid patio cover design is a perfect way to maximize the space on your patio. For example, you could have a solid cover closer to the home to protect your grill and a dining area, and a lattice fringe around the edges to provide a dappled shade for your informal seating and lounging section.
Durable Patio Cover Options
When it comes to durability, you have a few different options to make your patio cover last for a long time. The most durable patio cover material is vinyl which will withstand the worst of each of Calgary’s seasons and comes with the added benefit that you won’t need to worry about ongoing maintenance or repair. Vinyl patio covers also have the benefit of being able to be painted in just about any colour that you need to be able to match your home, and they can be easily tailored to fit any size of patio cover design.
Aluminium patio covers are also up there in terms of their durability. As they sit above most people, it is very rare that they get scratched and need very little maintenance. Since our Desert Sun Patio covers come with baked-on paint, adding another layer is not recommended, as chips are more likely to occur.
Finally, if one buys a patio cover made from wood, there is a high likelihood of needing regular maintenance, which is why we at Desert Sun Patios do not sell this type. Even with the right stain, a wood patio cover will need regular maintenance, and you will be limited on your colour choices depending on the type of stain that you need. A wooden patio cover is also more blocky, meaning that you won’t get the same type of flexibility of design as you would with the other patio cover materials.
