Please talk to me about your porch

[DitaVonCheese]

We are just about to be given a bit of money and I want to get our porch rebuilt. I am very excited about this, even if it does make me officially middle-aged

Current porch is small, ugly, flat-roofed, exactly the same length as my buggy which means it is impossible to push into the house (both sets of wheels get stuck at the same time) and, most of all, mouldy (house had major leak/flood before we bought it). However I do love it because it is a handy place to leave stuff for people to pick up and it means I never EVER have to go to the local sorting office to collect parcels.

Would like the new one to be reasonably large with pointy roof. At the moment am thinking would like a bench down one side (for putting on/removing wellies etc) and shelves on the other. Torn on whether we should have hooks and also have coats etc in there - at the moment the outer door is left open for postie etc but then is anyone going to steal coats really? Also not sure whether to have brick with couple of windows or half brick/half glazed, though suspect cost will be major factor there (and obviously glazed means fewer coat pegs). Assuming it will cost £1,000ish - we are in NW - is that reasonable or very naive?

So tell me about your porch! What do you have in it? What would you like in it?

Also does anyone know whether we need planning permission to remodel it?

IMO brick to match house, open-fronted, pitched roof tiled to match house roof, tall narrow window at each side, looks best. Quarry tiled floor with a good fall so rain and moppings drain away easily. But it all depends on the style of your house, you want it to be in keeping.

I like the idea of the benches. You could put lockers under them for boots, or train your milkman and postman to put things there.

If you hang coats up, ne'erdowells will come and search the pockets for loose change or wallets or keys.

Not having a door in it means you can stand under cover while you search for your front door key.

£1,000 sounds far too low to me.

We don't have a porch but sorry £1000 seems to low.

I don't think you'll get one for £1k tbh

i would have coats in there, so less clutter in the house. and get a door with a letterbox so post goes in there and you don't need to leave it unlocked

i think you might need planning permission yet

Really? Balls. Around here they quote about £1000 per m2 extension but that's fully finished with carpets, proper roof, plastering etc. Since porch just needs to be unfinished brick I thought it would be a lot lower than that.

House is shitty red brick ex-council

I live in a shitty ex council house too and we're currently having the porch replaced.

From a planning permission point of view, you shouldn't need it as long as it's within your permitted development rights and it's not more than 3m square. There's also a rule about the distance from a highway, but I'm not too sure about that as we have a big drive, so not an issue for us.

Our new one is 3m long x 1m deep, so no planning permission required. It's got a double glazed door on the front ( which we had already so not included in cost) and a window, then the rest is brick. Our last porch was fully glazed and it was a pain as coats always bleached in the sun, so we wanted some solid walls.

We plan to have a shoe rack in there, amd lots of hooks for coats and bags. For the short term we also plan on putting baby car seats in there - I'm having twins in 2 wks!

It's costing about £2.5k in the Midlands, and that was cheap - we had quotes nearly double that.

I always get in a muddle about metres squared v's square metres, but to give an example, 3m x 1m is fine. 3m x 3m wouldn't be.

HTH

i think the majority of the cost comes from digging and putting in foundations. the structure itself, bein gjust brick is not so costly and doesn't take so long

likewise, if you have an extension, it doesn't cost double to do a double storey one... because the cost is mainly for foundations

does that make sense? so you are probably looking at not much under £1k per m2 even though the walls etc are unfinished

but get quotes! you may prove us all wrong

I recently asked for a ball-park figure for a porch on our shitty council house!! For a mostly brick, partly glazed, fairly-large porch (room for a Nipper 360) with a lockable door on front (for said pushchair, also plan to leave coats/shoes) we were quoted the best part of £5k. Obviously, we didn't actually get down to the nitty-gritty and it's only one quote, but on that basis I would say £1k is pretty optimisitic.

I would definitely have hooks for coats and school bags etc, having space for that stuff is invaluable, particularly in wet weather, along with a space to leave boots/shoes. Your house will automatically be easier to keep clean.

Ooh, I've got porch envy. Ours is a uPVC monstrosity, and I dream of F&B painted wood. Have to say, I was assuming £5-10k for rebuilding, but I'm in London.

Fark! at those quotes

Only want single glazing, already have door (99p off ebay ). Wouldn't be massive. Would it really need proper foundations? Presumably the bit already there already has some.

Dang, need to get quotes don't I? Meh.

Our builder managed to extend the foundations that are already there, rather than dig the whole lot from scratch, so that may be an option for you.