The front porch on Walnut Street in Paris had reached the end of its life. The original concrete structure — porch slab, stairs, guardrails, and the wood-framed covered overhang — was deteriorating and no longer safe to stand on. The owner wanted to replace it with something built to last, appropriate to the house, and with enough covered shelter to actually be useful in a Paris winter.
The brief
Full demolition of the existing concrete porch, stairs, and overhang down to grade. Then rebuild: new pressure-treated deck frame, new deck surface, new covered shingled roof. Keep the large structural column that supports the second-floor overhang — it stays, and the new deck gets built around it.
Demolition
Concrete demolition always carries unknowns. You don't know how deep the slab is or what's underneath until you open it up — and the composition of the sub-base only reveals itself as you go. This one was the full scope of what a concrete demo can involve:
- 65lb electric breaker to break the slab
- Skid steer for material handling and loading
- Four concrete bins for debris
- Three-person crew, 90 person-hours over 3.5 days
- All concrete, stone and debris hauled to an approved disposal facility
At one point during loading, the skid steer was so heavily loaded with broken concrete that we couldn't keep the rear tires on the ground. This is exactly the kind of thing we flag at the quoting stage as a contingency item — the scope adjusts to what the ground actually contains, not what we assumed it contained before the first swing of the breaker.
New deck framing
Once the concrete was cleared and the grade confirmed, new footings were installed using 12" concrete tube forms. The deck frame followed: pressure-treated 2×12 beams and joists, joist hangers throughout, ledger bolted to the house. The deck surface was brought up to match the existing door threshold.
- New concrete footings at column locations
- PT 2×12×16 beams and joists (ledger board bolted to house)
- Joist hangers at all joist connections
- Sienna brown 5/8"×6" pressure-treated deck boards
- 2"×2"×42" PT balusters with top and bottom PT 2×4 rails
- New stairs with correct rise/run for the grade — we added a stringer to get the step count right
Covered roof
The second-floor overhang is supported by the original large structural column, which was retained and integrated into the new deck framing. The covered roof over the porch was framed with new 6×6 PT posts, sheathed, and finished with asphalt shingles to match the existing house roof.
Covered front porches are uncommon on Paris streetscapes. The result is a front entry that gives the house a front porch feel — shelter from the weather, a place to arrive and leave — without closing off the yard or changing the character of the house.
There's a significant difference between a front stoop and a front porch. This project crossed that line, and the result changes how the house reads from the street.
What this project illustrates
Concrete demolition costs are real and hard to predict before you start — we're transparent about this in every proposal. A project like this one requires proper equipment (you cannot do a concrete demo of this scale by hand alone), proper disposal, and the willingness to adapt as the sub-base conditions reveal themselves. A flat-price quote with no contingency for unknowns on a concrete demolition project is a quote that will blow up mid-job.
If you're thinking about a deck, porch, or exterior project in Paris or Brant County, start with a site visit. We'll assess what's actually there before putting a number on it.
For more on addition and exterior work, see our additions and ARU services page.