Great! I'm still very happy with mine. The one thing I would mention is that after a few weeks I noticed some mold or mildew on the end rafters and joists that got wet in the rain. I cleaned it off and gave all the wood except the pressure-treated parts 2 coats of Thompson's Water Seall and haven't had a prolem since. Gook luck with it and thanks for commenting.

Glad you found it useful. A few things like the timber screws I used well less than half the box, but still, all that small stuff adds up. Thanks for commenting,

17.3º Pitch is 3 ¾″ per foot. Thanks for commenting.

That would probably work. However, I would recommend keeping the rafters 2x4 but increasing the side beams and ridge to 2x10. My carpenter friend also recommends making the posts and diagonals 6x6. It depends to some extent on your anticipated snow load, but even for a 50 lb/sqft load, mycarpentry.com allows 2x4 rafters on 16” centers for up to a 5' 8” span, or 10½' width post-to-post. You don't want to make the roof any heavier than necessary because the main limiting factor is the strength of the side beams in the central span, 10' 3” in my case. If you make that span longer and also make the carport wider, both the span and the weight will increase and so beam requirements quickly escalate, but again it depends a lot on anticipated snow load, which can easily be more than the roof itself. My structure as described should safely support a snow load of about 12 lb/sqft or about 7-8 inches of heavy wet snow. It also depends on how you position the posts and how much you increase the central span. Really, if you want to be confident, you should calculate the total weight of the lumber and shingles in the roof (~1000 lb in my case), then calculate proportionally how much of that weight is in the central span, and finally the weight per foot over that span. Add to that the anticipated maximum snow load, which in many areas of the country can be 20 lb/sqft or more. Once you have a number for total supported weight per foot over the span, you can go to www.omnicalculator.com/construction/wood-beam-span where you can calculate how much weight per foot a single beam of wood can support over a span of a given length. Then you can determine how many beams, what size of beams (2x6, 2x8 or whatever) and what type of wood you need. Thanks for commenting. Sorry for the delay in responding.

If you make the central span longer and also make the carport wider, both the span and the weight will increase and so beam requirements quickly escalate. 2x4 rafters are probably still OK but supporting a 30' structure on just 4 posts would require a much larger beam. It depends a lot on anticipated snow load, which can easily be more than the roof itself and it also depends on how you position the posts and how much you increase the central span. Really, if you want to be confident, you should calculate the total weight of the lumber and shingles in the roof (~1000 lb in my case), then calculate proportionally how much of that weight is in the central span, and finally the weight per foot over that span. Add to that the maximal anticipated maximum snow load, which in many areas of the country can be 20 lb/sqft or more. Once you have a number for total supported weight per foot over the span, you can go to www.omnicalculator.com/construction/wood-beam-span where you can calculate how much weight per foot a single beam of wood can support over a span of a given length. Then you can determine how many beams, what size of beams (2x6, 2x8 or whatever) and what type of wood you need. Not sure, but I suspect you would end up using more posts to support all that additional weight. If you make it taller you would also want more and/or longer diagonal braces. Thanks for commenting.

Yes it's a 1988 Soleq EVcort, based the Ford Escort. They only made maybe 100 of them between 1981 and 1994, mostly for government labs to experiment with. It was one of the first EVs with regenerative braking. They had some pretty impressive EV tech in those days. What they didn't have was a decent battery, they were still using lead-acid, not much different from the Baker Electrics a centruy earlier. I converted it to lithium LiFePO4 batteries and now it is quite a practical little hatchback. Thanks for commenting.