Solar Ready Alumawood Carport with Insulated Roof in North Park, San Diego

Welcome, everybody, to our first YouTube video. We are Southwest Builders, a general contractor located in San Diego, California. We specialize in custom outdoor shade structures, solar patio covers or solar carports like the one in this video, and sunroom additions, and we are San Diego's Boxabl dealer. Here we're going to go through a build, and I'm going to explain some of the details.

What we're talking about here are the footing sizes. This project has enormous footings. It was engineered by a structural engineer and permitted here in the City of San Diego, and we handle all of that for our customers as well. These are huge footings, 4 feet by 4 feet by 2 feet deep, several yards each. These are the steel posts, countersunk deep into the footings with through rods that we installed, and they support the header beams for our structure. Those double beams have a steel insert inside them as well, and they're fastened together.

Up on the scissor lift is Josh, my brother-in-law. He's my wife's brother, and she's my business partner. And there's my brother John on the ladder. What we're doing here is adjusting the beam height using a string line, so the beams will match up with the roof panels. We have the string line at the highest point, and we're using custom stanchions that we built to hold the beam in place. Once that lines up and we've got the proper slope, Josh will fasten that support beam back to the steel post. This wide shot shows that we're building this over the existing driveway.

Here are the structural roof panels. They're pretty interesting: a 6 inch thick EPS foam core panel. That's expanded polystyrene, and it's a structural panel. There are structural conduits manufactured within the panels, two per panel, and that's what we use to mount the solar racking. We anchor right through the top, and the solar panels can be mounted right on top of that. That creates our custom solar patio cover systems. They're also insulated, so they keep you nice and cool underneath, and they're structural, so they can handle the weight of the solar. You can walk on them.

Next, I'd like to take a minute to explain these devices. I designed and built them. They're steel tube, with tripod legs and fasteners that can be tightened down, and they actually telescope. They're designed to hold our structure beams in place while we get them set. They'll handle the weight, and we can get our systems level. Here Josh is leveling up the other beam with the string line method, so we can get those nice and tight to the roof panels.

Now we're going to start installing the roof panels, and we're using a scissor lift to do it. It's definitely not a conventional way to use a scissor lift, but it's what we came up with, and it really is the best method here. As you can see, two of us are on ladders next to each other. These panels are 21 feet long. They're light because they're foam, but they're still relatively heavy and awkward. There goes a car underneath; we created a bridge. Josh is pushing the panels slowly and we're guiding them along, all the way through. Each one is then fastened down with large fasteners through the top of the panel into the steel beam below.

These panels are tongue and groove. We're pulling off the protective blue film that keeps them from getting scratched, and we have some foam wrap on the beam to keep the panels off it until we're ready to install them. Now that the plastic is clear, we click them together. As you can see, we snap them together, and then Josh fastens the panels to the structural support beams. We have to pre-drill those with really long drill bits. Once we get through that heavy steel beam, we can insert the roof panel anchor and fasten it down.

We've got all the panels up, and now Josh and I are going to install the fascia trims around the roof panels to finish off the foam edges. All this material is zero maintenance and factory coated. In fact, our product is unique in that it's coated with two coats of paint at the factory, a primer and a color coat. It's very scratch resistant, and our manufacturer guarantees that the paint will last a lifetime. It won't flake, blister, pit or peel. As you can see, we're getting them all squared up, and then we fasten them.

Now we're going to look at installing the post wraps. We've already installed some of the 2 by 6 pieces we call post wraps, which attach to the front and back of each post. We fasten those up the entire steel support post coming out of the footings, to trim it off so it matches the rest of the wood grain finished aluminum products. When it's finished it looks beautiful and seamless, and you wouldn't even know the steel posts are in there. Here's how the posts finish out, with the side plates and post fillers.

The dimensions of this patio cover carport are a 21 foot projection, so the panels are 21 feet long, by 20 feet wide. As you can see, there's plenty of clearance, even for a full-size truck with a rack. That clearance beam is about 10 and a half feet from the ground.

This beautiful Elitewood solar ready patio cover was built by Southwest Builders, and the project is located in sunny San Diego, California. Be sure to check out our website, linked in the description below, and stay tuned for more building content. Thank you for watching and sharing your time with us.