Front Porch Demolition Part 1 - Adding Supports to the Front Awning

Between mother’s day festivities, Lauren and I started demolition of the front porch. We started by bracing the awning with 2x4’s, a vertical piece with a 24” section screwed at the end in a T-shape, and another piece screwed to the underside of the awning to brace it against.

This didn’t seem to provide enough resistance; the structure was still sinking into the earth, so we added 2 horizontal boards underneath the ‘T’. This was effective to combat the sinking, but there was still the fear that the bottom would be pushed out sideways from the downward force. In the end we purchased some 2 ft sections of rebar and hammered them on the outside of the ‘T’ pieces. 

Once the awning was supported we could start removing the old metal railing. The bottom sections came off easily and we also managed to disconnect the posts at the top. This was as far as we got during our limited window of working time.

And now we know: the rebar was an unforeseen purchase, so I hope to re-use it in another project. I didn’t realize the supports needed to be quite so complex, I was just planning to lean up the 2x4’s and call it a day