Outdoor seating covered by a roof, and the chairs that need one

Look up before you order. If there is a fixed roof or an awning over the spot, you have a covered patio, and a few chairs in our range were listed for exactly that. If there is open sky, those chairs belong somewhere else.

Six of our outdoor records carry a line most buyers scroll past: use in covered patio only. The chairs look like any other faux teak patio chair in the photos. The line is what sets them apart, and it decides where on your frontage they can go.

What the covered-patio line means

The line sits in the spec list of the product page, next to usage. When it says Yes, the piece is listed for outdoor use under cover: a terrace with a roof over it, a porch, a deck under a permanent awning. It is not listed for the open sidewalk in the rain.

All six of these records also list indoor and patio usage. That makes them a strong fit for a room that opens to the street with roll-up doors or a glass front that folds back, where the seating sits inside the roofline but in outside air. Our indoor-outdoor patio seating is the place to start for that kind of space.

A market umbrella is not a roof. It closes in wind and comes in at night, and the chairs under it see the same weather as the rest of the sidewalk. Treat a spot under an umbrella as open sky when you read the flag, and leave covered-only pieces out of it. The commercial umbrellas guide covers what an umbrella is for.

The six pieces with the flag

Every one of them pairs a metal frame with a faux teak seat.

• A black metal patio chair with natural faux teak slats lists 17 lbs and a 500 lb capacity, and its armchair version lists 18 lbs and 500 lb.
• A white metal armchair with gray faux teak lists 18 lbs and 400 lb.
• A black metal arm chair with a black faux teak seat lists 18 lbs, an 18-inch seat, 400 lb, and stacks.
• A black metal armchair with natural faux teak lists 16 lbs and 400 lb, and stacks.
• A black metal bar stool with vertical faux teak slats lists 18 lbs and 400 lb, for a bar rail under the roof.

That is the whole covered-only group today: five chairs and one stool. No table in our range carries the line. Pairing the stool with a bar rail at 40 to 42 inches? Ask a specialist to confirm its seat height for your rail before you order.

Two of the six list stacking: the arm chair with the black seat and the armchair with natural faux teak. The rest are single carries. Under a roof that matters less than on the sidewalk, since a covered terrace is often where furniture stays overnight. Line the chairs along the back wall, chain them through the frames, and pull a cover over them when the forecast turns windy.

The mistake: buying by the photo

Two white chairs with gray faux teak seats sit a few rows apart in our faux teak patio chairs. One is the white metal armchair above, covered patio only, 18 lbs. The other is a gray faux teak armchair on a white aluminum frame, 13 lbs, 400 lb, stackable, with no covered line on its record.

On a phone screen, at thumbnail size, they are easy to mix up. Order by the look alone and a row meant for the open sidewalk can turn out to be the covered-only chair, or the reverse.

Avoid it with one habit. Before an outdoor chair goes into your basket, open its spec list and read three lines: frame material, usage, and covered patio. Metal against aluminum is the first clue in this pair. The covered line is the answer.

A covered terrace, counted

Say a terrace has a fixed roof over a section 20 feet wide and 12 feet deep, 240 by 144 inches. You want four-tops under it, on 36-inch square tops, using the black metal side chair at 22 inches deep.

One four-top with a chair on each side spans 22 + 36 + 22 = 80 inches. Add 18 inches behind every chair for pushing back and the footprint grows to 116 inches each way.

• Across the 240-inch width: 2 x 116 = 232 inches, so two tables, with 8 inches spare.
• Into the 144-inch depth: one row of 116 inches, leaving 28 inches.

Two four-tops, eight covered-only chairs. Push both tables against the back wall so the 28 spare inches sit at the open edge, not behind the chairs. Rain driven by wind reaches under a roof edge, and the front of a covered terrace gets wet first.

Rule of thumb: count the seats that fit well inside the roofline, order covered-only chairs for those seats alone, and fill the open deck with chairs that carry no flag.

What the warranty asks of you

Patio chairs and stools carry a 6-month limited warranty for defects at delivery. It assumes normal commercial use. Misuse is excluded, and so is outdoor furniture nobody took care of.

The covered line is part of how the piece is listed. Keep these chairs where the record puts them, rinse the frames and slats when they get dusty, let them dry, and store or cover them at season's end. Our warranty page has the full list of exclusions, including the wrong cleaning agents, so check it before you pick a cleaner.

For the deck beyond the roofline, look at patio chairs with no covered line on the record. The heavy duty patio furniture guide explains how to read capacity and frame weight, and the aluminum furniture guide covers the light frames that set up fast.

Two plans, one terrace

Draw the roofline on your sketch before you place a single chair. Inside it, the covered-only pieces. Outside it, chairs with no flag.

Then save them as two outdoor plans, one under the roof and one for the open deck, so the covered and open counts never get mixed at reorder time. Put the words covered patio only in the notes beside each flagged line. When you add chairs next season, ask for a fresh finish swatch first, because color lists change, and check that the record still carries the same line before the new row goes under the roof.