Pergola With Roof and Sides: The Point Where a Pergola Becomes a Glass Room
Updated: 9 hours ago
A pergola with roof and sides is a pergola that has been closed in: a rain-tight roof above, usually louvred aluminium, and glass, screens or shutters around the open edges. At that point it stops being a shade structure and becomes an outdoor room you can open on a summer evening and shut on a wet one. The sides are what make the difference between a patio you use on fine days and a space you use most of the year.
Why add sides to a pergola?
Because a roof solves the rain and the sun but not the wind. Sides give shelter, warmth and privacy, and let the heating warm you rather than the garden. How enclosed you want to be changes with the season, so the best sides are ones that move.
Which sides can a pergola have?
Frameless sliding glass panels give the fullest enclosure. Each pane glides along a slim floor track and parks in a neat stack at one end, so the open edge goes from sheltered to fully open in seconds with no frames across the view. Our pergola glass rooms use exactly these panels to turn a louvred pergola into a glass room.
Sliding aluminium shutters give adjustable shading and privacy along a side. Angle the blades to soften low sun, slide them away for the full view. They suit a side that faces a neighbour or the western sun.
Retractable fabric side screens drop from the frame to block wind, glare and overlooking, then disappear back into the housing. They are the lightest option and the easiest to add later.
Fixed glass elements suit a side that never needs to open, for example the one facing a boundary wall.
Most enclosed pergolas mix these. Glass on the garden-facing side for the view, a screen or shutters on the exposed side, nothing at all against the house wall.
Which roof works with sides?
A louvred roof is the natural partner. With the louvres closed and the glass shut, the space is a room; with the louvres open and the glass slid back, it is a pergola. The blades rotate up to 140 degrees and can slide fully open on the systems we install, and weather sensors close them automatically in rain or wind. A fixed glass roof also works with sides, and at that point the structure is really a glass veranda; our guide to the aluminium veranda covers that route. A fabric roof is the weakest partner for sides, because an enclosed space with a fabric roof still has to be opened up in heavy weather.
What makes an enclosed pergola comfortable?
Heating and lighting, chosen for a space that is sometimes open and sometimes closed. Infrared heaters warm people and surfaces rather than the air, so they work even with a panel open, and they can be mounted on the frame. LED lighting runs in the louvres, the fascia or the posts. Underfloor heating is possible where the patio is being built or rebuilt at the same time. All of it, along with the louvres, the screens and the sensors, runs from one climate control app, so the room adjusts from your phone.
Where you want the enclosed result from the start, a purpose-built glass room may be the cleaner answer. The Weinor glass rooms we install are designed as enclosed rooms with slim-frame sliding glass walls rather than as a pergola that has been closed in, and the difference shows in how the panels meet the roof.
What does a pergola with roof and sides cost?
As a guide to typical UK market prices, supplied and fitted including VAT, a motorised louvred pergola of around 4m x 3m costs £6,000 to £12,000 with open sides and around £13,000 to £20,000 once sliding glass and integrated lighting are added. Larger enclosed pergolas cost more: packaged systems with sliding glass on every open side are advertised from about £13,000 at 4m x 3m to about £34,000 at 8m x 6m. Heating, motorised side screens and feature lighting typically add £500 to £2,000 each.
Within those ranges the price is set by the span, how many sides are glazed rather than screened, whether the louvres are motorised with weather sensors, and the heating and lighting. These are market figures, not our quotes; we price each enclosed pergola after a survey, and our guide to pergola cost explains what drives the number.
Does enclosing a pergola change the planning position?
Not for planning. In England the same height, depth and boundary limits apply whether the sides are open or glazed; our guide to pergola planning permission sets them out.
Building regulations are the part that moves. An open-sided structure is not normally controlled. Glazed on all sides and attached to the house, it is exempt only if it meets the conservatory conditions: ground level, no more than 30 square metres, separated from the house by external doors, heating independent of the house system with its own controls, and safety glazing. Open it up to the house and it needs approval, so decide at the design stage how enclosed the pergola will become.
Pergola with sides or aluminium pergola?
Not sure you want sides yet? Start with an aluminium pergola engineered so the sides can follow; a frame never designed for glazing cannot take it later.
Pergola with roof and sides questions, answered
Is a pergola with glass sides the same as a conservatory?
No. A conservatory is a permanent, insulated room attached to the house. An enclosed pergola is an outdoor room that opens up: the roof and the sides both move, and it is not designed to be heated all winter like a living room.
Do the glass sides need frames?
Not on the systems we use. The panels are frameless toughened glass on slim tracks, so the view stays uninterrupted and the panels stack neatly when open.
Will it be warm in winter?
Warm enough for a cold evening with the panels closed and the infrared heating on, but it is not an insulated extension.
Talk to our design team
If you want a patio that can be a pergola one hour and a glass room the next, our pergola glass rooms are designed to do exactly that, and we are happy to talk through how enclosed you want it before the design begins.
