Replacing a Porch Roof

Back in May, I headed to the United States for a short trip. The main objective of my visit was to replace the porch roof of a house that I own in Memphis. The house itself needs a lot of work which I don’t plan on doing quite yet, but I was under a bit of pressure from the local inspector to fix up the house a bit. Given that the porch roof was a glaring issue, I decided to tackle that in order to make a visual improvement that didn’t require me to get into the actual structure of the house.

When I first arrived, I quickly surveyed the roof, which was completely rotten. It was missing several sections, and I didn’t want to save any of it. I immediately got to work tearing it down. I’m a complete amateur do-it-yourselfer when it comes to repairs, so I took my time and relied on working long hours to keep the project moving forward. The first day, I removed each piece of wood by hand, slowly removing nail after nail, and tearing down the roof while not endangering myself too much. Mostly, I didn’t feel comfortable climbing up on top of the rotten porch roof, so I worked from a ladder, which slowed me down.

By the second day, I was tired of working from the ladder, and I worked up the courage to climb up on top of the rotten porch roof. It was a huge time-saving decision. The second half of the porch roof came down much faster as I was able to pull off pieces of wood more quickly and easily. Near the end of the demolition work, I simply pushed the remains of the entire structure out onto the lawn, where it busted apart.

Throughout the entire process, I was going back and forth to The Home Depot many times. During one of these trips, I bought lumber which was designed to replace the large square pillars holding up the porch roof. The pillars available were not as tall, and so I decided to salvage the existing pillars. What really surprised me was that I found the existing pillars to be completely unattached to the porch itself. It took some time and trial and error, but eventually I was able to rent the equipment required to anchor those pillars into the concrete and I was satisfied with the stability of the pillars.

Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the process was the framing. I like working with wood, because it’s relatively easy to work with and mistakes are easy to correct. Though I did a good job making the framing secure, I made a mistake in my measurements by not considering how much I was going to have to cut the plywood boards I was placing on top of the frame.

Another of the many challenges I faced was the curve in the wraparound porch. I was able to find some flexible pseudo-boards that could be used for this curve. I attached a series of boards along these in order to keep the right shape for the curve, and though it was a time-consuming process, I got the result I was looking for.

With the frame done, I just had a few more days to add the plywood layer and finally the actual roof shingles. The plywood took me some time because I had to cut each piece because of the nature of my framing. As with all the other steps before, I got the result I wanted after working hard for long hours. The roof shingles themselves was another story as I unknowingly placed down a roll of very sticky roof shingle material, not realizing that it would negate the need for shingles themselves.

Though I had not envisioned it that wasy, I stuck with the rolls, and covered the whole porch roof with those. The result probably isn’t much to look at, but it should keep the roof from sustaining water damage like its predecessor.

This was a tough project for me which took about 10 days of hard work. Doing the project alone meant that I was constantly losing time by going to the store, and I had to carefully plan how to handle the heavier materials. I probably adujsted my ladder upwards of five hundred times. I’m proud to have finished the project in the allotted time, and all for a budget of less than four thousand dollars. I was quoted fifteen thousand by a carpenter over a year prior, and I’m not sure that would include everything.

It’s not the end of the work I will have to do on this house by any means, but it4’s a good start that radically changes how the house looks from the street.