Hardtop gazebos

A hardtop is a rigid roof on posts. On this page that means one of three things: galvanized steel panels, which is most of the grid; a steel lower roof with a translucent polycarbonate upper tier, which lets daylight in; or a steel hip roof with a polycarbonate skylight strip. A fabric canopy on the same posts is a soft top and is not here. The gazebo vs pergola guide covers the third kind of roof, the louvered one that opens.

Sellers call the same kit a permanent gazebo, a metal roof gazebo and a pavilion, and the search results treat those as one thing. Read "permanent" as: it is bolted down and it stays up through winter. It is not a building. Every kit here arrives in boxes, goes up in an afternoon with two people, and comes down the same way. The Amish site-built gazebos that also rank for the word are a different purchase at several times the price.

If the listing does not say which roof panel it is, assume steel and ask.

The post material changes the maintenance and almost nothing else. Aluminum does not rust and does not need staining, so it is the right buy near salt air or on a deck you will not repaint. Steel holds the same roof for less money and rusts where the powder coat is scratched, which Sunjoy’s warranty excludes in plain words. Wood costs about what aluminum does, needs a coat of stain every few seasons, and is the only frame that looks like part of the garden rather than something parked in it.

The roof is steel on all three. So is the price logic: at the same size a steel-post and a timber-post kit sit within a hundred dollars of each other, and aluminum starts a little higher. Pick the frame for the yard you have, not for the price.

A solid roof low over a patio traps warm air. The two-tier design most of these kits use fixes that with a gap between the tiers where the hot air leaves, and it is the feature to insist on in a hot climate. A single-tier roof is cheaper to make and stuffier to sit under.

Rain is the easy part: every roof here is pitched and drains off the eaves, and a few carry a gutter in the beam. Polycarbonate panels let daylight in and let heat in with it; steel keeps the space cool and dark. A skylight strip in a steel roof is the compromise, and Sunjoy sells it three ways on this page. Choose steel for a sunny patio and polycarbonate for a shaded one.

Price per square foot falls as the roof grows, because four posts and a rail cost the same under a hundred square feet as under two hundred and forty. A 12×20 costs about twice a 10×10 and covers two and a half times the ground. Buy the size the patio takes, not the best ratio; a roof that overhangs the slab drops its runoff on your shoes.

The common sizes tell you where to look. 10×10 is a table for four. 10×12 is the size Sunjoy sells most of and the cheapest full-size hardtop here. 12×14 and 12×16 seat six with room to walk. 12×20 is a dining table and a sofa together. Below all of that sit the grill shelters: the same steel two-tier roof shrunk to five by eight over a barbecue, and the cheapest hardtops on the site.

Some listings carry a snow load and a wind rating. Some carry neither, and the ones that do are not the most expensive kits. These are the manufacturer’s own figures with no test standard named, and the same maker states a number on a timber-post kit and nothing on the aluminum kit under the identical roof. Read them as a claim, not a certification, and do not rank two kits on them.

Two things you can do with those numbers. First, notice that the wind figure is the same on every kit that states one, which tells you it is a design target and not a test result. Second, treat the snow load as a reason to clear the roof, not a reason to leave it: a load figure is a limit, and wet snow is heavy. Bolt the feet to the slab, take the curtains down before the first storm, and if the listing gives no figure at all, assume nothing and anchor it anyway.