Last fall, I noticed that the side porch was crumbling a bit. I didn’t have time to get to it, so it had to wait for spring. Finally, last weekend, I started on the project. After removing all of the loose materials, it looked much, much worse than anticipated (these types of projects always seem to go in that direction–it’s like pulling a thread on a sweater).
I had some patching concrete on hand but quickly ran out so I had to make another store run to buy some more. Unfortunately, they didn’t have enough at Ace to finish the job, so I’m going to need to make another run this weekend (or whenever I can actually work on it again, damn weather). I was able to get the left side mostly filled in. I need to do a skim coat on it to wrap it up. On the right side, which was much worse, I actually mixed up some aggregate concrete that was sitting around the house and filled the corner blocks with it. I figure it can’t hurt. And then I have to patch the entire thing.
I have no doubt that the porch will need to be replaced at some point (or at the very least, repaired by a mason). There were some other areas that sounded a little hollow, but since the outer coating wasn’t chipping off, I wasn’t about to make the situation worse. But I hope my fix buys me at least a few years–I need a new roof before I can start thinking about replacing porches.
Once all of the concrete is patched, I’ll paint the whole thing after it has cured. In the meantime, I have enough other projects to keep me busy.