Pergola Kit with Shade SAIL for 4x4 Wood Posts (12x12)

We received the Toja Grid kit last week and just finished assembling this weekend. We received four boxes: one with the shade sail, one with the post feet, and two with the corner joints. We watched the instructional video on the company's website and followed those instructions. Total assembly time was about an hour. We took our time to ensure everything went smoothly. More experienced folks could set this up in under 45 minutes as the manufacturer claims.What we like best about this pergola is that we can disassemble it when we move and either reuse the lumber we've purchased or buy new if we want a change in appearance. Other pergolas seem like once assembled, they're meant to stay where they are. The Toja Grid system allows for flexibility in lumber choice as well as portability and re-usability in the future.

This is not a simple setup. A typical 4x4 does not fit without routing the edges. As you can see from the picture above the welds on the bottom near my hand and the top prevents a 3.5" x 3.5" 4x4 from fitting. Unless you have woodworking tools you will struggle with this. We had to get a hand saw and knife out to trim and that just looked bad.I contacted Toja and the response was to question the wood. They assumed the wood was wet and swollen, it was not. Since that, I have not heard from them. I asked for their quality control dimensions with the welds and have not heard back.Very disappointing that you attempt a weekend project and when there are issues you get no help.It is a cool system, and has great potential, but unless they clean up their welds it a bad idea to use these unless you have a good hand router and knowledge of how to use it. So now I have to buy a router, bit, and a way to clamp it down and spend more time fixing what should have come from the factory right.

The stitching on the shade sail has come undone along the entirety of one of the seams. It is exactly 2 years and two months old -two months past the warranty date. I should mention that we were only using it 9 months out of the year. The replacement cost is about a1/3 of the entire kit which seems terribly overpriced for what you get. I was able to find something comparable for $200 less on Amazon. Finally, if you order from them directly their customer service is slow and they will require your social security number to ship replacement parts (they are in Canada). I would suggest buying the LINX system by Wild Hog.

I purchased a 10x12 pergola kit directly from Toja Grid. This system is exactly what I was looking for...simple, durable construction, easy to assemble, with a nice shade. The metal pieces are a clever sheet metal design folded and welded to form the sockets for the 4x4s. This is a pretty nice case of getting pretty much what you expect based on the online pictures and description. When finished, the pergola is pretty sturdy and looks great. That said, it is not "rock solid." It shakes a little. Compared to a traditional wood pergola built with lots more wood and corner bracing, this is less solid. Compared to an inexpensive metal pergola, this is much more sturdy.We built ours using pressure treated 4x4s. To improve the appearance a little, I used a 1/4" radius bit in a router to round over the edges of the 4x4s to within about 3 inches of where they enter the sockets. I then sealed the ends of the wood with an end-grain sealer and stained the wood for color and waterproofing. In retrospect, I wish I had routed the entire length of the 4x4s because they were a little snug to get into the Toja Grid sockets. The reason for this is that the welds on the system are on the inside corners of the sockets, so the corners of the wood rubbed on them. I was able to get the wood into the sockets with a rubber mallet (pounding on a scrap piece of wood to avoid damage.) The rest was easy. Installing the shade was simple. It was easy to tension. All the information I read on Toja Grid's website made sense and turned out to be correct. Dimensions were correct, and the size of the sail was as expected. They did their homework and got it right.A few other comments:- The screws included seem to be zinc plated steel. Not really the best for outdoor use, especially with pressure treated lumber, and they would cause black streaks with cedar. Stainless steel would be better, and would be expected at this price. I ended up using stainless decking screws which meant that I can't use the black plastic caps included in the kit...so the screws show more than they would...may paint them black to match.- It took me about 2 hours to assemble this, but part of that was the need to use ratchet straps and the rubber mallet to get the wood into the sockets. Nicer wood with rounded edges would have gone in much faster.- When putting the legs on, you need a few extra feet of space more than the size of the pergola. I assembled this on a deck that is only 2 feet longer than the pergola, and had to improvise a little to get the legs on. The method Toja Grid recommends will work IF you have the space.- They provide alot of screw holes in each socket, but only enough screws to fill 4 holes per socket. It might make the system more stable if you fill all the holes with screws.- Optional (decorative) corner braces would make the system more stable, but would clutter up the look a little.- Real shade-sail manufacturers will tell you that the sail needs alot of tension to not rip in windy places. I believe that. This is not that sort of shade sail. I suspect with alot of wind, this may rip, because it does not have metal cables around the perimeter, and the frame wouldn't support that much tension anyway. I still think this is a nice solution. Time will tell on durability.

Easy to assemble, but pretty expensive for what you get. You're essentially buying a bunch of metal fittings, which are extremely well made. Doesn't include anchoring hardware.