HOW NOT TO BUILD A PORCH

I knew I was going to have to rebuild the porch because the boards by the front door were getting pulpy, and certain signs gave evidence of major construction errors. I opened it up today to take a look and it is even more absurd than I expected. Look at the picture below, and click on it if you want to see it real big. (I have no idea how the pictures here got saved as "j.w.howard" or who that even is but I am just going with it.) The bow you see in the 2x6 that forms the rail is not lens distortion. If I were building something to support a roof I would want one solid beam holding it up. These folks thought otherwise. They laid the floor down, then built the railing on top of it, then set the three support pillars on top of that. For some reason, each of the vertical members supporting the rail is made of one fairly recent 2x4, paired up with two short pieces of very old wood stacked on top of each other. I can't even imagine what the use of that would be. There is no wooden beam running along the front on top of the foundation, just old cinderblocks that they set the ends of the floorboards on. I don't know if there is even any kind of beam inside the three box pillars, or if they are the actual support for the roof.

Below you see what appears to be the primary support for the corner of the roof - one red brick standing on end, bolstered to some unguessable degree by the boards to the right of it, the inner one of which isn't even touching the foundation. See how the flooring is at least an inch lower at the end? The floorboards under each pillar are pushed down at least an inch, showing again that there is no single bottom-to-top support beam like any reasonably intelligent person would use.



Here is what's underneath, as viewed through an access portal at the end opposite the steps. Two long beams running the length of the porch, resting on one beam in the middle - not otherwise joined together except by the floorboards. That beam they are resting on is pretty rotted where it rests on the foundation, and it looks like it is just propped up with that pyramidal block sitting on the dirt.



Nothing about this, not one thing, is the way it ought to be. There should be a wooden beam running along the foundation where the cinder blocks are. There should be at least four support joists running from that beam to the front of the house. Those joists in turn should be tied together with two or three joists spanning the distance between them, making a solid framework for the floorboards to rest on. First and foremost there should be one solid vertical support beam at each corner and one in the center. That is what I am going to have to do.