This client in Mississauga reached out to us to renovate their front porch. They were tired of the bland concrete porch and wanted to dress it up to match what they also had us install with their front walkway. Dressing up your front porch is a great way to increase the curb appeal of your home, create a warm and inviting front entrance, and to lessen the threshold from the porch to the step into the house. Sometimes builders raise this step up to an unnecessary height which allows for a porch overlay using natural stone or concrete pavers.
Typically when installing a porch overlay, we opt for a natural stone cap border and either natural stone or concrete pavers in the interior. We like to use natural stone because regardless of wear and tear or chips on that material, natural stone is always going to be natural stone throughout. Whereas with the wear and tear of pavers you will notice the appearance start to change over time exposing the larger aggregate pieces that are within the pavers. Front porches get a lot of foot traffic which means more and more wear and tear over time which is why we prefer natural stone. However, in this scenario we opted for pavers in the interior in order to match the paver walkway.
There are also two different installation methods for a porch overlay:
- Wet Lay: This involves mortaring the material to your front porch. This is not our preferred method for horizontal applications as over time that mortar holds moisture and with our freeze and thaw cycles will start to break down and crack. This is most noticeable with the joints and over time the material will also begin to pop up and no longer be secured to the concrete porch. It also introduces the problem of efflorescence to the system which is a white powdery residue on the surface that is caused by the presence of moisture.
- Dry Lay: This is our preferred method for overlays. It involves adhering a cap that is thicker than the interior material around the border of the concrete, lining the interior with a non-woven geotextile, then leveling a bedding material inside, and laying your pavers on top of this material. This allows for a layer of free-draining material between the pavers and concrete for any moisture to collect and follow the slope of the concrete out. This prevents the same problems experienced in a wet lay application as described above. The joints are then installed using a polymeric sand which is swept in, consolidated, blown off to remove any excess dust or particles, and activated with water. With that activation, minimal water is able to work its way through the joint. It also remains flexible so it will not crack like mortar will.
We begin this installation by cleaning the porch where we will be adhering the caps to. Then we plan the cuts for the caps. We are using 4 foot long caps, so we want to be able to plan cuts to where they can be symmetrical on the project. For example, our opening is 7 feet between pillars. Instead of having a 4 foot piece and a 3 foot piece that is cut, we opt to cut two pieces at 3.5 feet so that the seam is symmetrical to the posts. This is less necessary where it will not be visible, but in an area right in the opening and walked up onto we want to ensure a symmetrical look. We also need to cut miter pieces around the posts which takes some time and measurements to get this just right.
Once our caps are cut, we can then adhere them using a hardscape adhesive. This will cure and adhere our natural stone caps directly onto the concrete porch. The area must be dry and free of dust. We apply a 2 inch overhang on the caps to the concrete and a slight slope down towards the walkway so if any water is sitting on the caps it will not remain there. The 2 inch overhang gives us a final overhang of 1 inch because we will be adhering some 1 inch thick natural stone to the face of the porch to also dress this area up.
We then lay our non-woven geotextile in the interior and begin to screed our concrete sand on top. This concrete sand is just 1/4 inch thick (our pavers are 1 3/4 inch thick which gets us to our height of the 2 inch caps) and acts as a leveling surface and a drainage layer between our pavers and the concrete porch. Since the porch is sloped away from the house, any water that makes its way through the bedding material will make its way away and under the caps and out of the system. This is why it is important when adhering the natural stone caps we do our beads perpendicular to the face of the caps rather than parallel because that would trap water.
Our pavers are laid in and cut where necessary, our polymeric sand is installed in the joints, and the project is complete for our clients. They are left with a beautiful front porch overlay that they can enjoy for years to come.
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