The crushed-shell path that keeps moving

Before you buy a pergola, move the table.

Every change below is put into the plan and the whole model is run again. That is why a pergola's winter cost shows up here without anybody having written it down, and why the cheapest thing that works is allowed to win.

Fixing

For

Reading at

12:00 PM·September

Where it stands now

Something left out here

The corner that goes green does not work for leaving things out over a year here, and how long it stays wet is why.

How long it stays wet is8.9h over— 20.9h against at most 12h
Repeated wetting with slow drying is what actually destroys outdoor things, far more than rainfall totals.
Hours of surface heat is3h over— 8h against at most 5h
Heat cycling opens joints, lifts finishes and warps boards.

Confidence low (43%). Treat this as a starting hypothesis, not an answer.

What this answer was built from

Use: Something left out here
Place: The corner that goes green
Weather: Hot and humid, long cooling season (scenario shape) (from a published source)
Method: Twelve representative days across the year, read at the month that punishes hardest

Something left out here is read across a whole day or year rather than at one hour, so single changes are compared on the questions pages instead. Go there.