Front Porch......adding on

[pioneergal]

As most of you know we are building with finances out of the back hip pocket.......and right now the wallet is thin.

Once again we are needing the advice and input of this forum .

The house is now framed, ceiling joist laid, and if the weather is good the rafters will start going up on Saturday.

The front porch is be 8x48 but has not yet been framed.....only the fondation of the porch which is a part of the house foundation is in place.

It was our intention to frame the porch with the house but the money got scarce and we felt it was in our best intrest to put our money into the drying in of the house before we suffered a loss with this unpredictable Texas weather.

The guys helping us with the framing said it would be okay to do things this way but that when we got ready to tie the porch onto the house that we would have to go back and tear out the first 2 rows of decking and shingles to get the desired 3:12 pitch on the porch coming off the 8:12 pitched roof on the house.

Our question is ........

Would there be enough of height and clearance (9' walls) to come under the eaves of the house and add the porch so that we would not loose the already laid decking and shingles.

One guy told DH that if we did it this way that we would only get about a 1:12 pitch instead of the 3:12 pitch and that it be a flat covering and not look good.
He also said that when a person went to step up onto the porch that the head clearance would only be between 7-7 1/2 feet.

Help!

Is he correct in his estimation of the 1:12 pitch or could it be a 2:12 or possibly even the 3:12 pitch that we wanted?

Would a 1:12 or 2:12 not look right?

What are our options or do we have any?


Jackie

[glenn-k]

Kind of sounds like he knows what he's talking about--- assuming porch on the side - 9' wall  @ 8/12 assuming  2' overhang = 16 inch height loss under the eaves or 7'8" - 1/12 pitch x 8' =7'0" less framing depth -

[John_M]

This may sound difficult, but it is not.  

Try to find some graph paper.   Here is a link from Glenn if you need some:

http://www.countryplans.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1138398523

Once you have the paper (I like to use the paper with 4 squares per inch) come up with a scale.  Maybe one square equals 6 inches and then come up with a scale drawing of your plan.  Try a profile looking at it from the East side (assuming the front is the north side).  This would tell you the height of your walls, deck height, roof pitch etc....

[harry51]

Another thing to consider is the effect on your view out the windows in the front wall of the house. If you push the eve of the porch roof down as low as possible to avoid the  tearoff, the bottom of the porch roof, framing, etc., may be mostly what you see when you look out the front windows from inside the house.

[Amanda_931]

Seems like 3 or even three and a half pitch is about the minimum for asphalt shingles, and maybe standard metal roofing.  Roll roofing can go down to two in a pinch, IIRC.  Also, IIRC, anything below that is called a flat roof, needs special treatment to keep water flowing downhill, in, for instance wind-blown rain.  

"Flat roofs" can be done, but snow loads are going to be greater, if that's an issue there.  Rubber roofs, glue-on or brush-on, may be what you need, and they may be more expensive than re-doing the roof you've got.

If you're shingling, taking off a course or two of shingles from the overhang may not be that big a deal--if possible buy all your shingles at once so they've slightly more possibility of ending up the same color.  Annoying, involving a lot of time dangling off a ladder, dropping roofing nails everywhere, but....  Just think, y'all will be experienced home carpenters by then.  

If you're putting on rafters, not trusses, another possiblity would be to put less pitch on the side with the porch, e.g. 5 or 6 in 12, extend your walls up on that side as well.  Then you really could just come in under the overhang to put in your porch roof, maintain some sort of reasonable pitch on that.

That solution might end up as right ugly, though.  You could make it look like something other than an afterthought if you made a shed dormer out of the shallower pitch.

[glenn-k]

Jackiel, it seems that if you are for sure going to add the porch later it would make sense to clip the rafter tails off now leaving only a short overhang - maybe 4 to 6 inches that you can join your porch under later using a ledger along the wall.  By doing this you won't have to tear off the lower roof and can still get most of your desired pitch.

[pioneergal]

Jackiel, it seems that if you are for sure going to add the porch later it would make sense to clip the rafter tails off now leaving only a short overhang - maybe 4 to 6 inches that you can join your porch under later using a ledger along the wall.  By doing this you won't have to tear off the lower roof and can still get most of your desired pitch.

Glenn,

Yes we are definitley going to add the porch at a later date .
As I stated in the earlier post we are just a little short of funds to be able to completet the porch and house structure at this time.
So, we thought it best to get the plywood subfloor under cover by funneling the money into the house roof.

What you are suggesting us to do ....cut rafter tails and do a ledger........is the idea that  DH had thought about and was wondering  if this would work to give us the desired results. A 2:12 or maybe even a 3:12 pitch.....we just didn't want the porch roof to be flat.

I will pass your information on to DH ......I'm sure he 'll be happy to know that his thought was not too far  into left field and that we might not have to do reconstruction on the house roof to add the porch.
It's too much like burning money and waste of good materials.

As always, a great big thanks to you and all others on this forum for your thoughts and advice.

Jackie

[glenn-k]

That came to mind because it is currently what I am doing with the Little House Plans, building my RV Garage.  The little house plans have a clipped rafter option which  stops even with the walls.  After that I will put my porch all around with a 1 or 2/12 pitch here.  I want to concentrate on getting the main part of the structure done first.   Just a place to display antique machinery - look old (the building - not me) etc.  An added reason is that it will take the roof runoff farther away from the underground portion of the garage.

[Amanda_931]

That will work.

But John M's idea of looking at the profile on graph paper sounds like a good one.  Just in case.

[pioneergal]

Thanks to EVERYONE for all of the great advice!

BUT..... it seems that our worries , concerns, and questions about the porch may be a thing of the past.

I have not had a good night of sleep since I don't know when or an appetite and the nerves are shot........ and we are just getting started.

After thinking some things thru we have found a way to go ahead and complete the porch so that we can deck everything at the same time .

I will be sooooooo glad when this house gets dried in from the weather.......I'm going to relax for a bit!

[glenn kangiser]

Great--glad you found a solution.

Now ---worrying won't help anything, so just lighten up a little --just think things through, do the best you can and deal with the rest as it comes along.

No use making yourself sick about it.  All the worrying in the world won't complete things any better or faster.

Drink some warm cocoa and go to sleep.  Things will go even better when you are well rested.