I've heard step down so water can't creep in.

Is it an immediate step down? That doesn't seem as safe to me, but maybe I am misunderstanding. I have several friends who built farmhouses with frontporches that have wood floors, and there is no step down to the porch from the door. There is a threshhold, then the porch floor. We have a masonry front porch, and there is a little, perhaps 4" "step" from the door down to the porch floor, but it doesn't look or function as a step.

I prefer no-step. Better for accessibility. Proper finish grading should take care of drainage concerns but not always possible with existing work.

Google up front porch images and you'll see most entries are elevated above the porch.

If you don't elevate, you had better be prepared for an occasional rush of leaves, snow or whatever when you open the door.

This discussion sounded awfully familiar... sure enough, when I did a search I found a thead on the same question from just a few months ago. LOL! To save everybody some time, here is a link.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dec 2011:

+1 on Renovator8

discussion sounded awfully familiar

Most are!

And the point of my million pics was that many/most entries are elevated above the adjacent porches, if only the few inches. For example,

Thanks for the visual!

I have concrete outside exterior doors, and nothing is elevated (there is no step.) It's all graded so water flows away from the house. The front door has a covered area that protects it from the elements. Once it snowed and the wind blew the snow towards the door, but that would have happened with a step or not.

It is standard here for new builds to be more accessible and not have steps. I live in a dry climate, which might make that easier to accomplish/get away with....

Here's a pic of my front porch when my house was under construction. I chose not to have a step and it was fine because of my deep porch. I would have had to have a step all the way across that French door too. I will do it again this way.

My shallow porch, on the other side of the hose should have had a step. I made a mistake there. The rare big snow that we have looks a little like the picture above.

{{gwi:1431378}}

Maybe I am wrong but when you say porch that includes a roof and can be a part of the home. A deck or patio is with out a roof system unless you build roof structure of sorts but it is till opened air??

So everyone stating about weather and leaves snow its a porch with a roof unless it has no knee walls a snow drift or wind blown leaves will gather at the door.????

I am having the same issue when addressing my 70ft deck that has a metal roof and I divided it with walls...So its a PORCH till I enclose each room into a sun room still a porch. A family room on the porch till It is structured as one etc...

karanne, is there a question? This is an almost 10 year old post. If you have a specific question you may be better off starting your own post.