It is common throughout the UK to see porches similar or the same as the one shown here. They are an integral design feature of many properties, take one away and something does not quite look right no matter how hard one tries to disguise the footprint of a demolished porch the house frontage is missing something. 

The common weak spot on porches with timber supporting posts (and also on larger porches) is that they rot at ground level. 

The common ‘solution’ and I bracket the word solution because it’s not really a solution is to encase the base of the porch posts in concrete.

You can clearly see from the image of the removed concrete base that this has had two repairs: the green concrete block showing the original repair and the sand coloured concrete showing the second repair the timber  in the second repair had perished completely. 

This may delay the inevitable but rot will take place around the entrance into the concrete block and continue inside the concrete block.

Earlier articles on this website show how I cut a 45degree joint and added hardwood keys to prevent slippage on posts rather than take them out entirely. This depends on how the roof structure has been constructed. It can mean removing a roof to get to the post where it meets the facia in order to remove it entirely.

But on this occasion I removed both posts entirely. They were 65mm square and looked somewhat spindly given that their job is keeping a porch roof aloft. 80mm posts with stopped chamfers were fitted and at the base a ‘galvanised cake stand’ employed. These are great as they are adjustable and keep the timber ends off the ground prolonging the life of a post by many decades.

Because the roof had been going south for a number of years, the whole structure had come away from the building. You can see this clearly in the gap created at the facia end against the brickwork. There is very little I can do about this; jacking up the structure to level up did close the gap by about half (18mm) but I am unable to close this entirely.

The customer was lucky he had a gap. Firstly that’s how most homeowners often suspect something is amiss so that’s good and secondly it means that the whole frontage around the porch has not been pulled out which would be a bit of a disaster, to sort that one out you would need to remove the porch and get a bricklayer to then remove the outside course of bricks and rebuild it back plumb. That is expensive.

I have seen this and it’s not  a good news story.

I removed the roof slates and supplied and fitted replacements along with new fascias all round . So half a new porch for the fraction of a price for a new one.

If you were so inclined, a quick walk around your block and you will no doubt see porches that are listing to one side,sunk at the front and those with concrete bases that are silently rotting away.