# Forum Home Renovation Pergolas, Gazebos, Strombellas & Rotundas  Advice on Gazebo Construction

## chalkyt

Hi All 
I have drifted down the page a bit from my usual haunt, but you see, SHMBO wants a "summer house". So, I am after some learned advice on how to best go about it. The site is a bit exposed to the wind which can be fairly fierce around our way. 
The plan is for a free standing 3Mx4M hipped roof gazebo, with 4 corner posts (perhaps 3 posts on the long side) with a colourbond roof on top of timber beams/bearers which are bolted to the posts. The site is sloping about 0.4M in 3 M so cut 200 at the top and fill 200 at the bottom seems like a workable plan. Now for the decision bit... there seems to be three options: 
1. 90x90 timber posts (4 or 6???) on stirrups in 300x300x400 pads with knee bracing to the beams. 
2. 90x90 F4 timber posts concreted into the ground (say, 750 or so deep) with no knee bracing. (Not sure if bracing would be needed) 
3. 90x90 steel posts concreted into the ground with no bracing needed to the beams. 
Option 3 is clearly the "belt, braces, and safety pins" option, but is it overcatering? This option seems to be "self bracing" but would the other (cheaper) two options work just as well? 
We plan to have "railings" on three sides. These will be partly for appearance and partly to avoid someone pushing a chair back and falling over the front or side edge. These railings will probably be 90x45 timber frames with either "colonial style" cross bracing (i.e. 90x35 "X") or 90x45 top rail on top of "pool fencing". There seems to be plenty of aluminium pool fencing panels with 16mm round verticals available on-line for $60-$100. The other choice (but not the favourite because of the amount of work) is timber top and bottom rails with 25x25 verticals. I would expect the railing panels to also provide a degree of bracing which might avoid the need for knee bracing on Option 1. 
The "floor" is most likely going to be compacted earth/sand with pavers or something like that. Building a timber deck isn't the preferred choice since overall height needs to be kept as low as possible, and it potentially provides a residence for undesirables such as snakes and weeds. I guess another option is to pour a concrete slab, but truck access to the location isn't great and a slab is likely to cost $1000 or so, which again seems to be overcatering. 
All comments, suggestions, advice, gratefully received.

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