The three-family porch
The stacked porches on a triple-decker are the defining structure of this city, and they are also the structure most likely to be held together by paint and habit. The columns rot at the base, the beams sag between columns, the decking goes soft where the snow sits, and the flat roof over the top porch has been patched with everything from tar to roofing cement to a tarp. Meanwhile three families use it every day.
Rebuilding one is a sequence: support the roof and upper porches on temporary posts, replace the columns on proper bases, replace or sister the beams, reframe the deck with joists that actually reach the ledger, and finish with decking, railings, and a rubber roof on top that drains to one corner instead of pooling in the middle.
Ledgers and the wall behind them
The ledger is the board that attaches a deck or porch to the house, and it is where most deck collapses start. On old houses it was often nailed, not bolted, and rarely flashed, so water ran behind it for decades and rotted the rim joist it was fastened to. Before I attach anything, I pull the old ledger and look at the wall. If the rim is soft, it gets replaced. Then the new ledger goes on with structural screws or through-bolts, flashed with a metal cap and a membrane so the wall stays dry.
This is the part of a deck job that nobody sees and the part I spend the most time on.
Footings and frost
Deck footings in Hampden County have to go below the frost line or the deck heaves every spring and the railing pulls away from the house. I dig and pour footings to the depth the code and the soil call for, and on the sloped lots in Wilbraham and Longmeadow that can mean deep holes on the downhill side. Precast pier blocks sitting on the grass are a shortcut I see on a lot of DIY decks, and they are why the deck is now three inches out of level.
Decking, railings, and what lasts here
Pressure-treated framing under either pressure-treated or composite decking is the standard. Composite costs more and stays flat, does not splinter, and does not need staining every other summer, which matters when the deck spends four months under snow. Railings are built to code height with balusters spaced so a child cannot get through, and stairs get proper stringers and a landing pad that does not turn into ice.
I build the deck to shed water away from the house and to leave room for a snow shovel, because a deck that cannot be cleared will hold a drift against your siding all winter.
Porch roofs and rubber
Most porch roofs in Springfield are low-slope and covered in rubber membrane or, on the older ones, rolled asphalt that is long past its life. A porch roof leak drips onto the porch deck below and rots it, so the roof and the deck are one job. I install fully adhered EPDM with proper edge metal and a drip edge that throws water into the gutter, and I frame the roof with enough pitch to drain. A flat porch roof that holds water is a roof that will fail, no matter what it is covered with.
Screened porches and covered decks
Out in the suburbs, the request is often a covered or screened porch off the back of the house, somewhere to sit in July without the mosquitoes from the river. Those get a real roof, tied into the house with the same flashing care as an addition, and screen panels framed so they can be removed and stored for the winter.