Traditional Porch Construction

[Eperot]

Now that I am working on the outside of the house finally, I am putting more thought into the porches I'd like to build. One to replace the long gone front porch, and another on the back of the house off the kitchen.

I have plenty of old porches here in town around me to use as examples but seeing one finished doesn't help all that much to understand the internal layout of the components that make up the roof structure. I want to do a traditional victorian era porch with all the correct scale and construction methods. Does anyone have any photos or line drawings of the framing of an old porch roof? Or any places on the web that I may not have come across in my searching?

Thanks in advance
-Eric

[Lily left the valley]

Do you know about Vintage Woodworks?

They have a Porch Guide. It covers everything from determining porch type and porch shapes/rooflines to breaking down the structural parts and details to actually planning out your build. That site has 80 drawings for reference with some measurements noted, a product cross reference with measurements for details, and what seems like a thorough walk through for planning the porch one wants to build. I didn't read all the pages in full, but that site is the best I can offer from my quick web search. Edit: also just noticed they show how to match older wood sizes with modern materials with measurements shown on the drawings!

I know at our local library, there are all sorts of older books and there may well be one that has exactly what you're looking for. Our catalog (and that of their local intra library system with other nearby libraries) is online and now with Covid one can "order" the wanted books, then they pull them and schedule a curb side pick up.

You might also want to check the online archives where entire books/catalogs/magazines are scanned. That's how I found the catalog for the company that did all the finish woodwork for our home. Even though the kit houses weren't really a thing then, there might be something on standard framing in the time period you need.

[Eperot]

Lily, yup, thanks for that. That's a pretty good resource right there. I will definitely spend some time reading there.

[Gothichome]

Eric, we had this site posted in the reference section.
https://www.nps.gov/tps/how-to-preserve ... orches.htm

[phil]

ont have a direct link to this info but this site
https://archive.org/

has a lot of books that are downloadable. You might find some good info but it seems there is a bit of a knack to searching it.

Since woodworking is not new but one of the oldest trades there are many older publications that can be freely shared as the copyright is often not renewed, and then they become public domain. I found one good book on woodworking and joinery. I believe there is a lot more in there.
some books you may be able to borrow, rent, or get temporary rights to view, others are free for the taking.

[Gothichome]

Was just looking at Archive.org. Lots of stuff using the date filters. Found this, poarches about page 90.
https://archive.org/details/framingapra ... 9/mode/2up
A while ago you were talking Yankee gutters, check out page 47.

[phil]

that looks like an interesting book. I thought I'd pipe up and say dont miss the fact that if you just click one of the download links rather than using the top viewer thing, you can see things a lot better once it's on your drive.

[Lily left the valley]

Was catching up on some old house articles today, and thought of this thread when I was reading about "Dutchman repairs". I think from your original post one porch will be an entirely new build, but I think the other may be extend back to what would have been the original size. If the one will be an extension and you're hoping to use some of what's already there but have some top rot on rafter ends, the info might be helpful.

The Porch Roof