Outside the house

Porch Repair for Floors, Posts, Railings and Steps

Rotten porch boards, sagging steps, loose railings and damaged post bases repaired and ready for paint.

A front porch is a big part of the charm of homes around here, especially the older houses and mill-village homes in Hogansville and LaGrange. It's also the part of the house that gets the most weather. Rain blows in, water sits in corners, and wood near the ground stays damp. Over time that leads to rot, sagging and wobbly railings that call for porch repair.

Porch repairs we do

• Replacing soft or rotten floor boards, including tongue-and-groove
• Repairing or replacing porch joists and framing under the floor
• Replacing rotten post bases or whole posts
• Rebuilding steps and stair stringers
• Tightening or replacing railings and balusters
• Repairing porch ceilings and trim
• Adding handrails on steps that don't have one

Where porches usually go bad

Rot starts where water sits and wood can't dry. On most porches that means:

• The bottoms of posts, where they sit on the floor or on a base
• The front edge of the floor, where rain hits
• The last few boards against the house, if the floor doesn't slope away
• Stair treads and the bottoms of stringers where they touch the ground
• Railing bottoms where water runs down and pools

Push a screwdriver into these spots. If it goes in easily, that wood needs attention. Our guide on porch wood rot prevention has tips to slow it down once repairs are done.

How we approach a repair

1. Find all the damage. Rot spreads past what you can see. We probe and open things up to find where good wood starts.
2. Support the structure. If we're replacing a post, we brace the porch roof first.
3. Replace, don't fill. Soft wood gets cut out and replaced with new lumber, primed on all sides when possible.
4. Fix the cause. That might mean better slope, a gap to let boards drain, or keeping a gutter from dumping water on the steps.
5. Paint to protect. New wood gets primed and painted. If the whole porch needs it, we can handle exterior painting too.

When it's more than a porch repair

If the porch roof covering leaks, you'll need a roofer for that part. If the porch is pulling away from the house or the foundation piers are sinking, a structural contractor may need to look at it. We'll tell you what we see and help with the parts that fit our work.

Let's look at your porch

Call or text (706) 594-5049 with photos of the soft spots, posts and steps, or fill out the free estimate form. We'll come check it out and give you a free estimate. Pricing depends on how far the damage goes.