www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

Hi all

I am in the process of having a porch built by my brother,he is doing the brickwork then i have got to fit the door and window and make the roofing for it.
I am not sure how to begin the roof for it,it needs to slope up to the house from the porch and go over the window,i want to use roof tiles on it,i can supply pictures of what i meen if my explanation is not to good.

Cheers

Andy

Hi Andy,

welcome to the forum.

For the porch roof you can fasten a piece of timber, such as 4 inch by 2 inch to the house wall at an height so that you get the desired height for the roof. This piece of timber needs fastenng to the wall well so use some suitable fasteners.


You then use some lengths of suitable timber, 3*2 or 4*2 depending on the span, rest the top of these pieces on the piece of timber that is fsstened to the wall, and use a birds mouth joint, which is just a small v shape that is cut into the timber. Nail this piece of timber to the timber that you have fastened to the wall and have the timbers extend past the wall of the porch, then trim the timbers to the correct length. as for spacing of the timbers I am not sure but would imagine that 18 inch centres would be sufficient.

Spacing and timber thicknesses will depend on the size of the porch.

Hope this makes sense.

Here is a rough idea of the birds mouth joint-

Where the timber meets the wall you can also trim it so that it is straight

Cheers handyman That makes 100% sense.

I can picture it now how its goin to be now,just a few more questions if thats ok.

The birds mouth pieces coming from the wall to the porch,do they sit on the actual porch or a piece of timber on top of the porch 1st.

Cheers

Andy

Hi Andy,

I would of done a better picture but I am away from home at min on a realy slow internet connection.

Normally a piece of flat timber such as 3 inch by one inch is fastened to the top line of bricks in the porch, this is laid flat and fastened to the bricks. You then have something to connect the other timbers to, you can use another birds mouth joint and nail it to the timber ontop of the wall, which is called a wall plate.

Good luck

That is brilliant mate thanks.

My brother is nearly up to lintel so hopefully in the next couple of weeks i can get started as he can only do it on the odd weekend.

once again cheers for that i shall keep you posted how i get on

Andy

something like this-

remember you will need to design the pitch of the roof for the type of tiles you are putting on, 15 degrees minimum i believe for tiles and 25 degress for slates

Handyman - that is perfect thanks.

Tim - thats a good point i shall have to see what tiles im getting.

Cheers

Andy

Hi all



Lintel is now on, this is a rough diagram (looking from the left side) of where i am upto apart from 1 layer of bricks all round the outside edge


What happens now?does there go another brick at the front then the timber on top.

Sorry if picture is too big.

Andy

That's a good picture Andy!

It depends how high you want your porch to be, normally you would add one or two more courses or bricks and then attach the wall plate, then start with the roof.

the position of the wall plate is detemined by the edge of the roof do you want fascia boards or not

This is a side view without the bricks at the side it this roughly right?




I just want to get it 100% right before i begin


Sorry if its too big again


Andy

yeah that look ok.

You could put a birds mouth at the bottom as well

Oh yeah thats what handyman said,

the double walls were confusing me a bit

Andy