Carports protect vehicles against adverse weather such as precipitation and excess sun exposure. They also offer vehicles reliable protection against bird droppings, which damages car paint due to containing pancreatin. Unlike when drivers park on the street, car windows no longer have to be cleared of frost and snow in winter. Pleasant temperatures in the vehicle’s interior are provided in summer without having to run the air conditioning beforehand. 

Carports are also an affordable alternative to garages and are well suited to being carried out as a DIY project. These parking spaces are often open at the sides. Alternatively, climbing trellises or timber walls can be installed along the supports. Carports can also be covered or designed as an open, green and leafy pergola. A natural grown “roof” of this kind also offers some protection against the elements to a degree while skilfully blending into the surroundings of the garden. Another option is an attached carport, which borders the house and is connected to the external wall. 

Before do-it-yourselfers make a start on the construction, they must first clarify whether an official building permit is required. Regulations may differ depending on the federal state, city or community. Builders can obtain further information from their local building authority. The size, design and distance to the property boundary are of key importance. The carport’s dimensions depend on the existing space as well as the vehicles you intend to place underneath it, such as one or two cars, bicycles or even a campervan. There are many additional options such as installing a rack for storage or adding on a shed. You can get ready-made kits made of timber beams, steel or aluminium to build a carport. 

Supporting structures made of wood are particularly easy to configure individually. In order to build the basic construction, users cement the foundation before anchoring the supports in it. This usually tends to be an isolated footing. U or H type post support brackets are inserted into this foundation and screwed together with the supports above ground. The fixing specialist fischer offers stainless steel post screws that are suitable for this specific application. When it comes to attached carports, fastening two to three supports in the ground is sufficient, as the other side is connected directly to the wall of the house, providing advantages such as saving a great deal of time and costs. A crossbeam can be attached as a trimmer beam to the existing wall. The fastening must be coordinated with the existing load-bearing base, the insulating layer that potentially requires bridging as well as the loads to be absorbed. In this case, getting advice from experts such as the Application Engineers at the fischer Group of Companies is essential. Heavy-duty fixings tend to be suitable for anchoring beams to the wall of the house. Examples include the fischer bolt anchor FAZ II in concrete and the fischer high-performance mortar FIS V Plus with their suitable system components for any conventional building material. If the wall features an external thermal insulation composite system which the fastening will be attached to, then stand-off installation systems that bridge the insulation and are anchored in the support wall must be selected. fischer offers the TherMax 12 and 16 for this purpose. Push-through anchor sleeves such as fischer’s FIS H22x130/200 K bridge the distance between the external leaf and the inner supporting leaf in double-leaf masonry.

The steel anchors and anchor rods of injection systems or stand-off installation systems must be made of stainless steel (R or A4) variants. Upon inserting the fischer TherMax, the external thermal insulation composite system must be carefully sealed with the fischer multi adhesive and sealant KD, which can be painted over. The purlins (horizontal beams) of the carport roof are then fastened to the wall with the installed trimmer beam. The roof is additionally supported on the other sides, in which case additional beams are connected with the supports. The fischer Power-Fast and fischer Power-Full screws were made for wood on wood connections such as these. An optional roof cover can subsequently be installed on the purlins. Upon completion, carports offer drivers permanent benefits.