Knowing the steps involved can help you be prepared if you decide that a front porch will add value and enjoyment to your home. However, don’t let that deter you from making a porch your next home project.

You will need a couple of helpers to build a porch, as this project definitely demands more skill and physical conditioning than building a typical deck project. You’ll be handling heavy materials while standing on ladders at high elevations. However, if you’re adding or expanding a porch to your house and your home does not have enough of an existing overhang to serve as a porch roof, building that roof over your porch can be complicated. Typically, a porch will have a roof over it because it’s already part of the house. A porch is typically enclosed on three of its four sides and, because it juts out from the front of a house, is often situated beneath a roof or overhang that is part of the house.Īdding a roof to a porch can be a complicated project and hard work.

A deck is typically attached to a home or can be a free-standing structure that is open on all sides. Unlike a deck, a porch may require a roof. Footing sizes are larger and need to be positioned so that support posts can directly transfer roof loads through sound framing to solid foundations. Footings are often required on the sides of porches that use a gable porch roof.

This extra 25 lbs per square foot is required to safely support the roof and snow loads.

Porches need to be designed to support 80 lbs per square foot, compared to 55 lbs per square foot for decks. Building a porch can also be more expensive than building a deck, as well as more complicated.

Front porch steps pictures