Front Porch Demo And Rebuild ?

Tidewater07

I am working up a price for a customer that has a 100 year old home that the concrete; covered front porch is cracked and falling off the house, The porch is approx 22' wide and 6' deep, the roof is supported by 6 colums. I would like to hear what you guys have to say about how to support the roof covering the porch, while I remove the old columns and concrete slab.

Jason Whipple

I would use a steel I beam and cribing. That should keep evrything out of the way when you do the new work. Are you pouring a new slab?

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Jason E Whipple, General Manager
Historic House Restoration, Cincinnati, Ohio
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Tidewater07

We are going to pour a new footer, foundation and a slab inside on top of compacted sand. What do you mean by cribbing?

genecarp

i would not use steel, if it is a roof only you are supporting, some double 2bys at angles back to blocks on the ground around the porch, you may need 6 or so to cover the 22' width, no big deal

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genecarp

forget the cribing

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cleveman

I have a similar job coming up-removing 5 columns and a wood deck.

The deck rests on a concrete block wall.

I plan on putting in some metal columns on the concrete block directly, up to the box beam above, then rip out everything. I'll just have to be careful not to disturb my temporary columns during the tear-out.

If I used Jason's I-beam and was clear all around, I could just pull the whole works out into the front yard and not have to dissasemble everything in place.

I've seen a lot of guys just run some 4x4's down into the front yard and stake them in place, then remove and replace. I guess this is ok if you do everything in a day or so, especially if the roof above has sagged and it will be trued up later.

Tidewater07

GENECARP, thats what I was thinking about doing, you see it all the time in new construction, but I wasnt sure if it would hold the weight of the older heavier materials used ie real 2X6 and such, but the roof above it i guess cant weight but so much.

genecarp

good get it done, make the money, we always have to be cautious, but we cant afford to make things bigger than they have to be.

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Jason Whipple

We recently lifted and leveled one side of a Garage. The slab was failing on one side and the block wall was failing as well.

We had to pull out the slab, form frame, install re-bar, and re-pour the slab and then build up the block wall again. We also had to remove and re-frame the front wall for new Garage doors. There was to much work to do and have to depend on a few sticks in the ground. Weight has a big factor as well. If it's an older structure with a slate roof or something you better put something hefty up there. If a lot of time is involved to replace the porch and replace/repair the columns and you're supporting with props it could sink a bit depending on ground condition and weather.

It's all relative. If it's a blow out, get it done and set it down type of job then use props. If you need time. ground conditions are mushy, or you have to work on the roof, then I would say use a beam and cribbing; level the thing up and go to town.

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Jason E Whipple, General Manager
Historic House Restoration, Cincinnati, Ohio
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Dan_Watson

I live in an area with many old porches and all we do is doubled 2x6 kicked down to stakes in the front lawn, we usually don't leave them long, but theres this one damned porch I pass almost everyday that has had them for almost 6 months and it still looks to be holding fine

nywoodwizard

I have done a porch where the beam also had to be reinforced. The trick was to set up some 8x8's locked into the old decking from the crawlspace then up to a temp header. jacked it up real slow to take some weight off the old header and post. braced it real well, installed some 1/2" steel. This is not a job for a weekend warrior,there's no room for error, very dangerous when there's two stories of house above your head.

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