Wood gazebos

Nobody sells an all-wood gazebo at this price. The kit is four timber posts, a beam on top, and the same galvanized steel two-tier roof that Sunjoy bolts to its aluminum and steel frames. Curtains and netting hang from a rail in the beam, when they are in the box. The wood is what you see and touch. The roof is what keeps the rain off, and it needs nothing from you.

That split is the whole buying rule. Judge the roof the way you would on any hardtop gazebo: panel material, a vent tier, a stated snow load. Judge the wood on three things: how thick the posts are, what sits between the post and the ground, and whether you will stain it.

If the listing does not say netting is included, it is not.

Wood costs about what aluminum costs under the same roof. At 10×10 the timber Kingston and the aluminum Kingston sit within a few dollars of each other, and the gap stays that narrow up the ladder. So the price question is not wood or metal. It is which size, and whether the netting and curtains are in the box, because adding them afterwards moves a cheap kit past a dear one.

Price per square foot falls as the roof grows, because four posts and a beam 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. A roof that overhangs the slab drops its runoff on your shoes, and timber posts on wet grass are the one thing this page tells you to avoid.

Roof size is not room size, and on a timber kit the difference is bigger. A 10×10 Kingston on timber posts leaves 8.4 feet between the posts, so a round table for four fits and a six-seat table does not. The 10×10 page lists that clear space for every kit at the size. At 12×16 you seat six with room to walk behind the chairs. At 12×20 a dining table and a sofa fit together, which is the size the search results call a pavilion.

Measure the patio against the posts, not the roof, and leave a foot of slab past the eave on every side. Then pick the roof. The two-tier steel roof is on most kits; the skylight roofs on the Antrim and the three 11-foot Skylight kits suit a patio already in shade; the single gable on the Wooden Gable gives height. The Valerie octagon and the Bella square are the odd shapes, and both cost more than a rectangle of the same area.

The post material changes the maintenance, the look and the clear space, and almost nothing else. Sunjoy sells the Kingston roof on aluminum posts and on timber posts, at nearly the same price, and the timber version is the one that states a snow load. Aluminum does not rust and does not want staining, so it is the right buy near salt air or on a deck you will not repaint. Steel posts hold the same roof for a little less money and rust where the coating is scratched, which Sunjoy’s warranty excludes in plain words. Wood needs a coat of stain every few seasons and a dry footing, and it is the only frame that looks like part of the garden rather than something parked in it.

If the look is the reason you are here, buy wood and put the stain on the calendar. If the reason is the roof, read the metal gazebos page first: the same steel roofs on aluminum and steel posts, plus the fabric canopies that no timber kit offers.

No kit here comes with a stain schedule, and this page will not invent one. What Sunjoy does put in writing is narrower and more useful. There is a humidity range outside which wood splitting is not a defect, a snow load and a wind rating on three timber kits, and nothing on the rest. Read those as the maker’s claims, with no test standard named, and plan around them rather than on them.

Three things to do with that. First, keep the posts off wet ground. Most kits put a moulded cover under each post, the Patio Wooden 12×20 and the Stanwood ship anchoring plates, and three kits ship lawn stakes. The Heavy-Duty Wooden lists the expansion bolts for a slab as not included. Buy the bolts with the kit. Second, stain the posts before the first winter and again when water stops beading on them; the humidity exclusion tells you Sunjoy expects the wood to move. Third, treat the snow figures as a reason to clear the roof, not to leave it, and take the curtains down before the first storm.

Ten of the kits on this page have "Cedar" in the name, and the search results for a cedar gazebo are the same kits again. Read the word as a style, not a specification. Makers across this market use cedar-style naming for outdoor timber whether or not the species is printed anywhere, and the manual for a kit will often say "wood" and nothing more. A cedar-named kit and a wooden-named kit from the same maker can share the identical roof, posts and price.

What the word does tell you is the finish you will get out of the box: a warm, reddish stain over straight-grained softwood. What it does not tell you is how the timber will weather, how often it wants sealing, or whether it carries the rot resistance that true western red cedar is sold on. The Amish and Canadian builders who name a species and a grade charge several thousand dollars more for it. If the species matters to you, ask the seller to name it in writing. If the look matters, any kit on this page delivers it, and the price should decide.