The Restoration of the Porch Roof

Check the Project Team and Progress section. As the painting of the porch is finishing up, I have finally been able to put together photos and narrative of the great work done by Dunn-Right and G&G on the porch roof structural corrections and restoration.

I’ll follow up in the next few days with a page on the work on the porch floor framing, decking, columns and stairs.

More information has come in on the history of the home and I’ll post more on the contractor team and neighborhood.

Roof Complete, On to the Floor

Taking advantage of a good weather day on Saturday, the crew completed the roof work by Monday afternoon. Now it’s much easier to enjoy the rain, not worrying about what it is doing to the porch.

Shingles and flashing looking good on the front section of the roof

The NE corner hip after being repaired and re-shingled

But Monday was also the start of significantly more work on the porch deck floor. damaged floor deck was removed, while the painter primed the replacement boards behind the house. The removal of the boards revealed sagging floor joists that contributed to water pooling in certain areas. Alberto and his crew also discovered that the porch columns were sitting primarily on the deck without blocking transferring the load to the structure.

After opening up the porch deck, Alberto pointed out the need to sister the floor joists in certain areas and add blocking to support under the column feet which were previously only resting on the sagging deck planks

While both the porch roof and porch deck were generally in good shape structurally, being able to trust the crew to identify, discuss and correct the problem areas is making for a rewarding project experience.

I’ve put up a QR code on the Dunn-Right sign that links to the website. We’re also building a small stand on which we’ll mount a laminated summary of the project.

Porch Roof Repairs

As a person of Irish and Scottish heritage, I love a nice rain. And watching a good rainstorm from our porch is an immersive experience.

But there have been issues with the porch roof that were always hanging around in my head whenever the rain started over the past couple of years. For instance, the hip of the roof in the NW corner had a sharp bend in the slope, there was no metal drip edge, and there were spots in the porch ceiling that appeared to be caused by water intrusion. All of these things contributed to water running down the vertical wooden surfaces, dripping and pooling directly on the porch deck and causing damage over time.

With the work completed as of yesterday, Thursday, my mind is already cleared of the watery angst. First, the crew took care of the hip roof failure, as well as all of the other framing needing repair and additional support.

Exposing the Problem - with evidence of previous repairs at this location, you can see the diagonal framing dropped at some point, creating a little river instead of even shedding of water

Jacking up the Framing - first setting a string-line to get the right slope, the guys used a jack to position the frame correctly

A couple of new pieces of timber and repaired joinery and the roof framing is corrected.

And so, with a days worth of work, the crew corrected the worst part of the roof and put my mind at ease. The plywood sheeting replaced the removed and damaged planks, and old planks are left in place where there was no damage.

Feel Free to Add to The Story

While I am still researching some of the history and continuing to receive help doing so, you may have some knowledge of stories related to the house. For example, you may remember the Helfs and their work in the community, or maybe you have some other ideas of how to verify the original home builder and date.

Feel free to comment on the Blog in the Updates and Comments section, which is linked at the top of each page of the site. On the mobile view, you’ll see two slim lines in the top right.

Shingle All Away and Repairs

After 4 days of work, the porch floor framing repairs being completed and the back stairs ready to be re-installed (after successful inspection).

But for anyone who thought removing the old porch roof surface while preserving the roof planks would go quickly…shingles doesn’t care.

The shingles are removed, a hole exposed and the ice shield scraped down.

With a lot of hard work, the crew has removed almost all of the shingles and has scraped off or scraped down most of the ice shield. There are a few locations where Alberto suspects we have some damaged or rotted framing. Over the next few days we’ll open up those areas and replace damaged framing.

The crew did a great job of preserving the original metal flashing as the shingles were removed.

Getting Started

Last Thursday, the crew arrived to begin the project, as I was finishing up the details for the first publishing of the project website. The weather was good to get started, but with rain expected (and realized) on Saturday, the crew removed the damaged stairs, damaged areas of the porch, and some of the damaged roof fascia and porch skirting through Thursday and Friday. They prepared the new stair stringers and re-framed the damaged area of the porch floor to finish up the week.

The real roof demo will start with the beautiful weather expected this week.

And the website should be public by the end of the day.