Louvered pergola kits

Here’s what the main brands charge for the same 10×10 size, manual and motorized together, cheapest first.

The roof works the same way at both ends of the table: louvers you open for sun and close for rain. A lot of the extra money buys a longer warranty (how to choose between the tiers): Erommy and Purple Leaf cover their kits for one year, while PergoLux and Hansø cover the frame for ten.

These are kit prices only. Delivery, anchoring, an electrician for a motor and a crew to build it all come on top, and pergola cost walks through the full bill.

A manual roof opens with a crank or wand you turn by hand. You can set an angle in the morning and leave it, and with nothing electrical inside there’s less to fail. The catch is that you have to be there to close it when a shower comes over.

A motor lets you move the louvers from a remote, a wall switch or your phone, and many motorized kits come with built-in lights. You’ll need a power outlet at the pergola, so budget for an electrician. Expect the motor to carry a much shorter warranty than the frame, usually one to five years.

A rain sensor that closes the roof on its own is usually an add-on rather than standard, so check before you count on it. The motorized pergolas page lists every kit with a motor.

In ordinary rain, yes. With the louvers closed, the roof sheds water into gutters that drain down the posts, so you stay dry in a normal shower. It isn’t a sealed ceiling, though: in a downpour the gutters can overflow, and wind pushes rain in at the open sides. The exception is a roof you forget to close, which lets rain straight through.

When water does come through, owners rarely blame the louvers themselves. The cause is usually one of three things you can check before you buy.

Roughly one in ten owner reviews on three popular louvered kits mention water, and most describe overflow rather than leaks through the closed roof. A gutter that can’t keep up in a heavy downpour spills over the beam edge, a long span that dips in the middle sends water out onto the deck, and a seam at a joint drips until it’s sealed.

The makers’ own help pages point the same way. Hansø tells owners to check the gutter channels every quarter and to build on a level base, and Mirador lists debris, a roof that doesn’t fully close and a frame out of alignment as the usual reasons for drips.

Every maker that describes its drainage puts the gutter inside the beams and sends the water down the posts, so the real differences are small ones. Backyard Discovery fits gutter guards to keep debris out of the posts, and Yardistry’s cedar models drain through two posts rather than all four. Hansø is the only maker that publishes a figure: its Apex help page says the drainage is tested for up to 5 inches of rain an hour. Ask where each post empties, because a corner by a door or a slope toward the house is where runoff becomes a problem.

“Waterproof”, “watertight” and “rainproof” are the makers’ words, and they aren’t measured to a common standard. Hansø describes rubber seals between the blades on its Apex, and PergoLux’s spec sheet says “watertight when closed” on its Pro Max. Mirador says its protection varies by model, with the 80S intended for light rain, and Erommy uses several of these words across its listings. Read the claim for the exact model you’re buying rather than the brand’s general wording.

A sensor closes the roof at the first drops, which matters because a roof left open lets the rain straight in. It only works on a motorized roof, and it’s an add-on where it exists: Hansø sells one for its Horizon and Apex at about $300, and BON sells one for its Villa and Weatherproof models at $150 to $200. Hansø’s sensor closes the roof but doesn’t reopen it, so you still open the louvers yourself when the rain stops. With a manual crank, the sensor is you.

If you want a dry table in any weather, a louvered roof is the wrong tool. A fixed roof sheds water the same way every time, and the pergolas with a roof page covers the hardtop options, while retractable pergolas lists roofs that slide open and shut.