My cousin bought a place up in Khandallah with a picture in her head: long summer evenings on a big open deck, glass of wine in hand, looking out over the harbour. Anyone who’s actually spent a winter on that hill knows how that story usually ends — the deck gets used maybe half a dozen days a year, and the rest of the time the southerly rips through it and nobody goes near the place.
My name’s Grant Ashby, and I’ve spent close to 18 years designing and building outdoor living spaces around Wellington — everything from decks and pergolas to courtyards and retaining work, on everything from the exposed hill suburbs like Khandallah and Karori to the sheltered valley pockets further inland. The one thing every job around here teaches you is that designing for our climate isn’t about fighting the wind. It’s about planning around it. Here’s roughly how I talk clients through that.
Work out where the wind actually comes from before you draw anything
The single biggest mistake I see — and I see it constantly — is siting the outdoor area for the view instead of for shelter. In Wellington the wind that does the real damage is the southerly, cold and relentless, but a north-westerly gust will do just fine too. Before I let a client commit to a layout, I get them to stand on the section on a genuinely rough day and just feel where the wind funnels. On a hill section in a suburb like Khandallah it often channels straight up or down the gully, which changes the whole layout.
Once you know that, you put the living area on the leeward side of the house wherever you can and let the building itself be your first windbreak. It sounds obvious written down, but half the failed decks I’ve walked past over the years were plonked on the most exposed corner of the section because that’s where the view happened to be. A lot of the villas and bungalows on these hill suburbs date from the early-to-mid 1900s, well before anyone was thinking about wind design at all — the original siting was about the view or the road frontage, not the weather.
Shelter you can actually build
You can’t stop a Wellington southerly. You can take the edge off it. These are the tools I reach for, and roughly what they cost installed:
| Shelter option | What it actually does | Typical installed cost (incl. GST) |
|---|---|---|
| Louvre or slatted screens | Slows the wind rather than blocking it outright, which avoids the turbulence you get behind a solid wall | $600–$1,500 per panel, depending on material |
| Glass balustrades and windbreaks | Keeps the view while cutting the wind | The most expensive option, and shows every speck of salt and grime |
| Hardy shelter planting / hedge | Softens the whole space and takes the edge off the gusts | Cheapest long-term windbreak, but takes a few years to earn its keep |
| Solid roof or pergola with retractable cover | Turns a fair-weather deck into something you’ll use most of the year | Adds meaningfully to the overall build cost |
My cousin ended up with a partly roofed area hard against the house, louvre screens facing the southerly, and she now uses it more than the big open deck she originally pictured. For the planting side, rather than guessing at what would survive up there, she went off landscaping a windy Wellington section: what actually survives.
Every section behaves a bit differently once the wind hits the slope, which is really the point — you’re reading the specific site, not applying a formula. If you want that read done properly for your own section, a landscaping specialist in the Khandallah area can turn that into a design that actually suits your exposure and gradient rather than a generic layout.
Materials that don’t fall apart in the wet and the salt
Wellington’s combination of wind-driven rain, salt off the harbour and long damp stretches is hard on gear. I push people towards stainless or hot-dip galvanised fixings, decking that can handle movement, and finishes actually rated for exposed coastal conditions. Cheap fixings will bleed rust stains within a year on an exposed section — I’ve seen it happen that fast. If the space is going to see any winter use at all, think hard about drainage and where water pools, because a slippery, mossy deck in the middle of July is a space nobody sets foot on.
Getting the sun into the space, not just the shelter
Keeping the wind out only gets you halfway there — getting sun in matters just as much. North-facing is the goal, and some thermal mass in the mix, a paved area or a masonry wall that soaks up daytime sun, keeps the space pleasant well into the evening. It’s the same logic behind the country’s healthy homes thinking, and the government’s guidance on warm, dry, sheltered living from Building Performance is a decent sense-check even when you’re only talking about an outdoor space.
What it actually costs to get right
| Project scope | Typical cost (incl. GST) |
|---|---|
| Simple sheltered deck with wind screens | $12,000–$25,000 |
| Fully roofed space, glass, quality decking | $40,000+ |
My advice is always the same: spend on shelter and orientation before you spend on size. A modest space you actually use twelve months of the year beats a grand one you abandon every time the southerly shows up.
Questions people ask me on site
How do I stop the wind ruining a Wellington deck? Put the living area on the sheltered, leeward side of the house first, then slow whatever wind gets through with louvre or slatted screens rather than solid walls, which just create turbulence behind them. A hardy hedge or shelter planting is the cheapest long-term fix, it just needs a few years to grow in.
Which way should an outdoor living area face in Wellington? North or north-east, so you catch the sun and turn your back on the southerly. On a sloping section like the ones around Khandallah, spend real time feeling where the wind funnels before you fix the layout — the best view and the sheltered spot are rarely the same corner.
Is it worth repairing an existing exposed deck, or better to redesign it from scratch? If the structure’s sound but it’s simply sited wrong or unshielded, adding screens, a partial roof or shelter planting is usually cheaper than starting over. If the timber and fixings are already rusting and rotting from years of salt and damp, that’s a sign it needs rebuilding properly with coastal-rated materials, not just patching.
What does a sheltered outdoor living area cost in Wellington? A simple deck with wind screens runs roughly $12,000 to $25,000 including GST, while a fully roofed space with glass and quality decking can pass $40,000 including GST. Prioritise shelter and orientation over sheer size if you want it used year-round.