We wanted a porch, not a pool

May 5, 2015 1:11 PM

Thanks to everyone's help in response to this AskMe, we built a screened porch and love it. But we've run into a little problem that we hope someone can help us solve:

Whenever it rains, or the snow on the porch roof melts, we end up with a large puddle of water at the main door from the porch to the deck. Besides the dog (and us) splashing through the water, it freezes when the temperature drops and the resulting skating rink can be difficult to navigate. It seems clear that there is a drainage problem, as the door sill appears to be a low spot. The floor is all cedar boards with nothing but screen and air beneath. I thought we could perhaps drill some small holes where the boards join to encourage drainage, but hope that you folks can suggest some better, less visible, solutions.

posted by DrGail to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

Put a gutter on above that door, draining out alongside those stairs, and I bet the problem will go away.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 1:15 PM on May 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

The water comes in from the outside? Through the door? Is there a bottom door sill? I would expect that something below the door would help keep stuff from just running in. But it's hard to tell from the photo if there's a sill or not.
posted by GuyZero at 1:15 PM on May 5, 2015

Could you maybe put some sort of metal grate right in front of the door?

If the door is screened (hard to tell from the photo) and the water is coming in from splashing on the deck then you could replace the lower 1/3 of the screen with some plexiglass or something.

Looking again at the photo the corner of the roof above the door is like a funnel directing water right down in front of the door. Put in gutters and maybe some sort of diverter right at the corner of the roof.
posted by bondcliff at 1:17 PM on May 5, 2015

Response by poster: To clarify: There are gutters along both long sides of the porch. To keep ice dams from forming where the porch roof joins the rest of the house, the builder installed what I believe is a trickle charge wire. And that's part of the problem, as the melted snow runs into the gutter and freezes, causing additional runoff to create giant icicles which melt and create some flooding. What little water splashes through the screen door is negligible.
posted by DrGail at 1:22 PM on May 5, 2015

Your best option is to clear the margin between some of the boards. These areas have been sealed, but you should unseal them. Let the water drain through to the ground. It will look better than drilled holes, and will probably be easier to keep clear.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 1:33 PM on May 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Call the builder and ask if he or she has any ideas.
posted by resurrexit at 1:49 PM on May 5, 2015