Porch Construction near you

The words overlap, but each type calls for different structure and approvals. What shapes the work is how high the floor sits, whether it has a roof and how far it runs along the house.

A porch that tilts toward the street or pulls away from the house usually has a footing problem. Freezing soil lifts supports that stop too close to the surface, and since the house foundation doesn't move with them, the porch and the house end up at different heights: gaps open at the siding, the door sill no longer lines up and the steps crack. New footings, whether concrete piers, helical piles or a foundation wall, should reach below the frost depth for your area and bear on soil able to carry the load, as the permit drawings show.

An attached porch is either fastened to the house through a ledger or carried on its own beam beside the wall. A ledger must be bolted into the house's structure with flashing above it, because water trapped behind it rots both the porch and the house. Before any hole is dug, public lines are marked through a locate service such as Ontario One Call.

Toronto's permit guidance lists porches among the additions that require a building permit, and it requires a permit to enclose an existing porch of any size. It separately requires one for a deck more than 60 cm above the ground, a threshold worth knowing for a platform-style back porch. Zoning still governs how far a porch may project toward the street and the lot lines.

In Montreal, permits are issued by borough. Ahuntsic-Cartierville, for example, requires a permit to build or replace a porch or stoop whose floor is more than 60 cm above the ground, while maintenance and repairs don't need one. For a floor higher than 1 metre, the borough asks you to consult a plan designer and a borough representative before buying materials.

Steps and guards are where porches hurt people. The National Building Code of Canada, and the provincial codes based on it, decide when a guard is required based on the height of the drop, and set its height, the size of its openings and the loads it must resist, along with how stairs and handrails are built. The figures depend on the code edition in force where you live, so ask your contractor to show them on the drawings; the railings page explains guards and handrails in more detail.

A roof turns a porch into an outdoor room, but it adds weight, catches wind and collects snow, all of which must travel down posts and beams to footings sized for them. Adding a roof to an existing porch may mean new or larger footings, and where the roof meets the house wall or roof, flashing has to direct water away from the wall rather than into it.

On older streets, porches, verandas and their columns, brackets and railings often define a house's character, and heritage rules may control changes to them. In Quebec, the Cultural Heritage Act requires the culture ministry's authorization before the appearance of a classified building, or of a building in a declared or classified heritage site or a protection area, is changed. Montreal also notes that extra fees can apply to a porch permit when the building or its area has heritage value. Elsewhere, ask your municipality whether the house is designated or sits in a heritage district.