Porch or not a porch?

moneysaver1978

Was thinking about adding a porch to the front of our new house. The front door is lovely so a shame to see it hidden inside a porch so was thinking of moving the door to the front (e.g. the door becomes the door of the porch).

This would mean that the "old" front door becomes a doorway, similar to this https://ferribywindows.co.uk/projects/porch-extension/ - but does this action mean that it is no longer a porch and is instead an extension which is then subject to planning permissions?

FFHillbilly

in my area you can build a small extension under permitted development, thats a projection of 3m max, single story, upto the full width of the property so I'm sure your porch would fall inside that and not be subject to planning permission

dickibobboy

FFHillbilly said:

in my area you can build a small extension under permitted development, thats a projection of 3m max, single story, upto the full width of the property so I'm sure your porch would fall inside that and not be subject to planning permission

Pretty sure that’s to the rear of the property only no?

FreeBear

Adding a porch usually falls under Permitted Development as long as it is less than 3m² (I think). It would still be subject to Building Regs, although if it isn't part of the habitable space, the rules are much more lax. Moving the external door to the front would make it part of the habitable space and (probably) subject to planning as well as more stringent building regs requirements.

One answer would be to relocate your lovely door to the front of the porch and fit a cheap exterior grade door in the original location - This maintains the porch as a porch if you see what I mean..

I have a fancy outer door on my porch, and a plain one inside to separate it from the main house. Two sets of doors with multipoint locking adds a little extra security.

Ectophile

If you don't maintain a front door between the house and the front porch, then the porch becomes part of the house, and has to meet building regulations.  So it has to be signed off by building control.  If you put in a new front door between the house and the porch, then it's just a front porch.

Personally, I'd go for keeping a door for the additional reason that it provides an "air lock" into the house on a cold windy day.  Without it, open the (only) front door and an icy cold wind blows through the house.

edwink

We added a new front door and small window and took the old front door/porch and window away. It was amazing the amount of extra space it gave us in the new bit of hallway. We added this to our plans for our rear extension when we first moved in. It definitely needed building regs to be done. The new front door is very secure and we definitely don't feel we need 2 doors to feel safe. It looks lovely from the front of the house we feel and the extra space was well worth it. 

HTH

Edwink 

RonRamsgate

Did a job last year, the householder acted as project manager  His initial idea was to retain the original front door and have it re fitted on the forward extension. Extension was larger than a PD porch. With no intermediate door.
They got PP but their private building control inspector asked the householder for the U values of the existing front door, something to do with part L approved document.
Householder was unable to get U value and a different idea was needed 

Section62

FFHillbilly said:

in my area you can build a small extension under permitted development, thats a projection of 3m max, single story, upto the full width of the property so I'm sure your porch would fall inside that and not be subject to planning permission

No, the permitted development rules for extensions are far stricter than that.  PD doesn't allow extensions to project in front of the "principal elevation" (usually the front wall), nor extensions in front of a wall adjacent to a highway (typically affecting side extensions on houses at the end of a street or at a junction)

Porches can be PD if they are over an external door of a house, are 3sqm or less, under 3m high, and not closer than 2m from the boundary with a highway.  This assumes full PD rights are still extant for the property and it isn't listed, in a conservation area, etc etc.

greensalad

Definitely put another external-style door in the current door location and move your nice door forward. It just makes sense and increases the usability of the porch so much.

I have a tiny porch that many would say is not worth having an internal door, but it's excellent. 

• Got a dog? Now you can chat with the neighbour/postman whilst locking the dog back in the hallway
• Perfect for big deliveries. Let the delivery person know the front door will be unlocked for them, lock the internal one, now you've got a dry place to store big deliveries
• Scared of spiders? Discover they have invaded a box of all your favourite hats and hair accessories? Put the box in the porch and ignore it for a whole year until you pluck up the courage to face it. We call it the Spider Box!

moneysaver1978

Thank you all for your responses! Lol at the Spider Box!

There's no hallway so the front door sort of gets you to the dining room on your left and stairs in front for upstairs hence we were looking to add a porch (within the PD). This would give us a bit of a buffer for taking our shoes off, etc. Moving the front door to the front of the porch would make it look a bit more seamless and perhaps brighten the "hallway"!

We don't mind doing it properly with insulation, etc. We are however unsure of the process. Do we say to the council "We want to add an insulated porch and we intend not to have a door between the porch and the house. Here's a fee of £XXX." or what?

Section62

moneysaver1978 said:

We don't mind doing it properly with insulation, etc. We are however unsure of the process. Do we say to the council "We want to add an insulated porch and we intend not to have a door between the porch and the house. Here's a fee of £XXX." or what?

You'll probably need both planning consent and building regulations approval.

The normal process is to get planning consent first.  For that you'll need reasonably detailed drawings, in particular given how thick walls tend to be now to comply with building regs, you'll need a design which gives you enough space on the inside, without being too big on the outside.  The planning drawings are possibly something you could do yourself, but with BR involved they will need to be more technical... so it probably makes sense to get an architect to draw up the plans for you, and help guide you through the whole process.

One advantage of getting full planning consent is you won't be constrained by the limits of PD - therefore think carefully about exactly what you want to achieve and whether a larger extension would suit your needs better.  E.g. if there is space outside, how about adding a cloakroom or study/office.