Lattice, Solid or Combo? What I Tell Las Vegas Homeowners

Lattice, Solid or Combo? What I Tell Las Vegas Homeowners

By Cody Peterson, owner of City Seamless. I build these covers for a living, and this is the same talk I give in people's backyards.

The short answer: go with lattice if you want the look and some shade. Go with solid if you want to actually live out there: sit, eat, run a fan, leave your cushions out. Go with a combo when you want both: solid where you sit, lattice where you want the open feel. And if you're on the fence, I'll tell you the regret we hear most: "I wish I'd just gone solid."

What lattice is really for

Lattice is mostly about the look. It gives the yard a vibe that a flat roof doesn't. There's more room to design, too. One of my favorites is 3×3 lattice, which we build all the time, with the ends cut in a curve (photos below).

It does give real shade, and you can work out how much with simple geometry. Our 2×3 lattice lies flat: each piece is 3 inches wide and 2 inches tall, with a 3-inch gap between pieces. When the sun is straight overhead, the pieces cover 3 inches out of every 6, so half the patio is in shade. The sun is almost never straight overhead, though. Once it comes in at an angle, the 2-inch sides start blocking light too, and the shade only goes up from there.

I ran the sun's path over Las Vegas to check this:

• Mid-July, around noon to 1 PM, the worst hour of the worst month, 2×3 lattice at 3-inch spacing shades about 52 to 59% of the patio. It never drops below half.
• Morning and late afternoon it gets better, and with the lattice running the right way it's close to full shade by 9 AM and 5 PM.
• Tighter spacing gets you a lot more, and it's what most of our lattice jobs use. At 2-inch gaps it's about 62 to 70% at midday in July. At 1-inch gaps it's about 78 to 88%, and full shade most of the rest of the day.
• In fall and winter the sun sits lower, and lattice shades most of the day.

The part nobody thinks about: which way the lattice runs. Run it north to south and the low morning and evening sun hits the sides of the pieces, so you get close to full shade early and late. Run it east to west and the low sun shines straight down the gaps, and you stay at about half shade in the morning and evening. Same cover, same price, very different patio. That's worth talking through before anything gets built.

The catch with lattice: dirty rain

Here's the con. In Vegas it can go months without raining, so your roof collects dust and grit the whole time. Then it finally rains, and all that dirt washes off the roof, runs across the lattice and drips down onto your table, your furniture and your cushions. Lattice lets the rain through, and the rain it lets through is dirty.

That also means you don't get to sit out and enjoy a storm under a lattice cover. People care about that more than they expect. Sometimes we put a rain gutter on the house above the lattice to catch the roof runoff, and that helps a lot.

What solid gives you

Solid is the opposite on almost every point. It's more fixed: a solid cover is basically a rectangle, and there's only so many ways to build it. You can go regular panels or insulated. What you get is a much cleaner space. It feels enclosed, more like an extension of the house than a piece of yard decor.

• It stays clean. Rain runs off into the gutter, not onto your table.
• You can put fans in it.
• You can leave your furniture out and actually use it.
• It's cozier. When it rains, you're sitting dry under it, watching.

Lattice is mostly decorative with some shade. Solid is the functional one.

When a combo makes sense

A combo is solid where you want it clean and lattice where you want it open. The most common layout: solid over the back door and the seating area, then lattice the rest of the way across the back of the house. That's especially common on a long cover that runs the whole back wall. You keep a clean, dry spot for the table and chairs, and you still get the open, airy look over the plants and the rest of the yard.

A combo always costs a little more than an all-solid or all-lattice cover of the same size, because it needs both halves' parts: the solid side's gutter, fascia and flashing, plus the lattice side's rafters. Going by our own jobs, a combo runs about the same as solid up to about 10% more. Lattice runs about the same as solid or a little less, up to about 10% less. So lattice doesn't save as much as people expect. The one that really changes the price is insulated, which runs a third more or higher.

The regret we hear most

Most people who regret their choice wish they'd gone solid. They get lattice for the look, then find out it gets dirty and they can't really use their furniture under it. We hear "I wish I'd just gone with solid" a lot.

That's why one of the things we do all the time, probably a couple of times a month, is replace lattice with solid. Usually we can take the lattice down, keep the beams, and put a solid roof on top. It's not like buying the whole cover over again. But it still costs real money, so it's a lot cheaper to get it right the first time.

How to decide

Ask yourself one question: what do I want to do under it?

• Eat out there, leave furniture out, run a fan, sit through a storm: solid.
• Mostly the look, some shade over a walkway, a pool edge or plants: lattice, and talk to us about spacing and which way it runs.
• A clean spot by the door plus an open feel across the yard: combo.

Call or text 725-502-3114 and we'll come out, look at the yard and the sun, and lay it out with you. The estimate is free.

See our lattice covers, solid covers and combination covers.

About City Seamless Patio Covers

Company: City Seamless Patio Covers — family-owned in Las Vegas, with trade roots dating to 1976
Owner: Cody Peterson (trained under founder Kent for 20+ years, took ownership 2012)
Nevada Contractor Licenses: #0081882 and #0082656 — verify at nevadacontractorsboard.com
Awards: Best of Las Vegas, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 2024 and 2025 (Customer Service)
Products: Alumawood and Four Seasons Elitewood (Classic and Ultra) — lattice, solid, insulated, combination, freestanding
Insulated Panels: 3-inch EPS foam core, built-in electrical raceways for fans and lighting
Elitewood Classic: Cedar wood-grain texture, lifetime limited manufacturer warranty
Elitewood Ultra: Driftwood emboss, Kynar 500 coating, lifetime limited warranty that also covers chalking and fading
Contact: 725-502-3114 | cityseamlesspatiocovers.com