If you are pricing a louvred pergola you will meet both: roofs whose blades are turned by hand, and roofs turned by a motor. They look nearly identical in a brochure and behave very differently in a British garden. Here is the honest comparison — including where we have landed and why.
What a manual louvred roof actually is
The blades in a louvred roof pivot to open or close. On a manual system that rotation is driven by a crank handle or a pull rod linked to the blade mechanism. It works, it has nothing to fail electrically, and it is cheaper to make.
The catch is where the handle lives. It has to be within arm’s reach of the structure, which means going outside to use it. On a warm evening that is no hardship. At half past ten in October, in the rain, in a dressing gown, it is a different proposition — and that is precisely when a louvred roof most needs closing.
What electric gives you
An electric louvred roof puts the same rotation on a motor, driven by a remote or a phone. The practical difference is not laziness, it is how often the roof actually gets used. A roof you can adjust from indoors gets adjusted several times a day — open for morning light, part-closed against midday glare, shut when the weather turns. A roof that requires putting shoes on gets set once in May and left.
Electric also unlocks the thing manual cannot do at all: closing itself. Paired with a rain or wind sensor, the roof shuts when the weather arrives rather than when you get home to it. For anyone whose outdoor furniture has been rained on while they were at work, that is the entire argument.
The honest case against a motor
A motor is a moving part, and moving parts can fail. It needs a power feed to the structure, which is an electrician’s job and should be in your budget from the start. And a cheap motor in an exposed British garden is a false economy — the sealing rating matters far more than the horsepower.
That is the real dividing line. A well-sealed motor in a properly drained frame is not a maintenance burden; a poorly specified one is. Our maintenance guide covers what actually needs doing, which is less than people expect.
What it costs
Motorisation adds to the frame cost, but on a structure of this size it is a smaller proportion of the total than most people assume — posts, blades, span and installation access move the number far more than the motor does. We have set out what drives pergola pricing in how much a pergola costs in the UK. Every structure is quoted individually against your own dimensions rather than picked from stock sizes, so the comparison that matters is on your garden, not a price list.
What we supply, and why
Our range is electric. That is a deliberate choice rather than an upsell: on the evidence of how these structures get used, a manual roof on a bespoke aluminium frame tends to end up as a fixed canopy with extra moving parts. If you want a fixed roof, a fixed roof is a better and cheaper answer than a manual louvre.
Where we do vary is the mechanism. A bioclimatic roof rotates its blades to control light and airflow while staying weathertight when shut. A retractable roof stacks the blades to one side instead, opening up to around three-quarters of the sky — a genuinely different experience, and a heavier structure to carry it.
So which should you choose?
If you are set on manual, buy from someone who specialises in it — you will get a better manual product than a motorised range with the motor removed. If you want the roof to earn its place across a full British year, electric is the version that gets used, and the sensor is the feature you will end up talking about.
Sizes and spans are set out on the sizes page. Send approximate dimensions and photographs for an initial budget estimate; if it suits your budget, we then confirm the detailed specification, CAD drawings and firm written quotation — get in touch.