A new porch can completely change the look of your mobile or manufactured home. You can add visual interest, curb appeal, and gaining outdoor living space is always a plus. A new porch can also increase your manufactured home’s value and give your family a place to make memories.
Building a new porch or deck is the first step toward making a manufactured home appear more like a site-built home. In this article, we have collected 100 photos of great manufactured home porch designs along with lots of great tips and advice for planning and building your own porch or deck.
How Much Does a Manufactured Home Porch Cost?
A new manufactured home porch typically costs between $5,000 and $10,000 but with the right planning, it’s possible to build a porch for much less.
Size is the Biggest Factor in Cost
The size of the porch will be the biggest factor in cost. Of course, larger porches and decks require more building materials.
Homeadvisor states, “The cost to build a 200-square-foot covered porch ranges from $4,600 to $22,000, or $10,500 on average. You can expect to pay $23 to $110 per square foot. The total includes flooring, steps, posts, railing, roofing and more. This includes a material cost of $11 to $70 per square foot and $12 to $40 per square foot in labor.”
Design is Another Important Factor for Manufactured Home Porch Costs
The difference between a porch and a deck is the roof. Porches have them, decks do not. Naturally, building a roof will significantly increase costs.
The design you chose for your manufactured home porch will be the second biggest factor in porch cost.
If you choose to go with a simple lean-to roof and use metal roofing you can build a 10’X10′ porch for just a few hundred dollars. High-pitched gable roofs will require a lot more building materials and skilled labor which will cost more.
The More You Can DIY the Better
Labor is the third most important factor when pricing a new manufactured home porch.
Naturally, it will cheaper to build a porch if you can do the labor yourself.
You can save money by doing many of the tasks yourself. Demolishing and removing the old porch or steps yourself can save money. Picking up the rubbish after construction can save a bit of money as well. Even buying and delivering your own materials will save a bit on costs. Offering to be a helper during construction can also save money. It never hurts to ask.
Site Built Vs. Manufactured Home Porches
There is a difference between manufactured home porches and site-built home porches. However, it’s this difference that can make building a porch for a manufactured home cheaper.
Nothing can be built onto a manufactured home’s structure, meaning additions and porches must be built as a free-standing unit with its own footers and must move separately from the home. Learn more about building mobile home additions here.
Keep your Local Code and Regulation in Mind
Like all building projects, you’ll need to abide by local building code. For example, if your porch sits high off the ground it will need railings and those must usually be at least 32″ so that cost will need to be added. Steps are also highly regulated and the rise and run must be a certain measurement to meet code. Learn more about mobile home steps here.
Before you start a new porch project you’ll want to start collecting ideas. Take notice of the roof designs you like most and the size of the porch or deck in relation to the home. Notice how they have positioned the porch and the steps.
Do you want side steps or front steps? Is a pitched roof or a gable roof your favorite? Have a favorite railing design?
Free Online Porch Design Programs
The best website I’ve found for porch design is Front Porch Ideas and More. You simply won’t find a more informative and thorough resource for porch design ideas online. They also have a very handy Front Porch Illustrator that can help you determine the right porch design for your home. While they do not have a manufactured home to chose from, they do have a standard ranch home that can suffice with a little imagination.
Here’s the home without a porch:
Here is one of the many choices of porch designs (Porch R9- Pitched roof, column capitals, painted ceiling, ashlar floor, and cast bed edging):
Visit the Front Porch Illustrator Here.
Azek Building Products has a deck designer that could be useful to you. You’ll need to create an account and have Java installed but it does create a nifty 3D visualization of your desired designs with precise cut dimensions and material lists.
Visit the Azek Deck Designer Here.
Planning a New Porch for Your Manufactured Home
Once you’ve chosen the perfect deck or porch design for your manufactured home you’ll need to start planning the build.
Simple deck designs can be built by experienced DIY enthusiasts. If you’re knowledgeable of basic construction methods (footers, post & beam construction techniques, and roofing concepts) and comfortable with tools it should be a fairly straight-forward process. More complex builds are probably best left to the professionals.
Free Porch and Deck Design Plans
You can find lots of free porch and deck designs online. Most come with complete schematics, cut dimensions, and materials list.
Aztek Building Products Free Deck Plans
Aztek Building Products, mentioned above, has several free deck designs on their website. Click here to view all of them. Once you click on the design you like it will open a PDF with several pages of detailed information, from schematics to material lists. Here’s an example:
Material List
Decks.com Free Deck Plans
Decks.com has hundreds of free deck plans available on their website. Click here to see them all. You’ll chose the design and then the size and enter your name and email information and they will email you a materials list. Here’s a sample of the various designs available:
What is the Right Size?
Once you’ve decided on the style of your new porch you’ll need to decide on the size.
The scale is an important aspect to consider when planning a porch or deck. You’ll want it to look like it was always a part of the home and to help add dimension, a quality that is sorely lacking in most manufactured homes.
Most professionals advise that you never go under 6 foot on either width or length for a deck or porch.
You’ll want enough space to sit and visit with friends and family comfortably. If you plan on grilling or having a table you’ll probably need at least an 8-foot width. You’ll also need to consider railing placement since railing is rarely positioned at the very edge with traditional porch designs. Typically there will be at least a 1″ overhang and if you are using 6″ columns they will need to be positioned over the framing – this automatically reduces your width by 7 inches minimum thus your 6′ wide porch will only have 5′ 5″ of usable space.
Length will be based on your home’s length and personal preference more than anything. Take into consideration shelter from the rain while walking to your garage or driveway and if you want the porch to wrap around to the side of your home.
Roofing Considerations for a New Porch
The roof of your new porch will impact your home significantly. You’ll have to consider the rise and run of the roof and how it will be incorporated into the roof on the home. Most professionals suggest that porch roofs have a minimum 3/12 pitch, meaning the roof rises 3″ for every 1 foot of length. This provides adequate rain and snow runoff.
Turning a Deck into a Porch – Weight Support Differences
If you have a deck that you want to turn into a covered porch you’ll have to consider a few things. Ideally, the best scenario would have been building the roof when you built the deck because there are footing and weight considerations to take into account.
While it’s a great project, you’ll have to ensure that your deck can handle the added weight of the roof. Porches must support 80 lbs per square foot. Decks only need to support 55 lbs.
How to Build a New Porch or Deck
If you will be building your new porch or deck yourself you should do a little research to reacquaint yourself with the basic building techniques.
There are several great resources online that can help you:
Porches are an American Tradition
Porches are an American tradition. Many of us were practically raised on a front porch. I know I sure was! Aside from being a great gathering place for family and neighbors, porches have many other advantages – extended living space and energy savings are two of the best.
I think every home needs a porch, especially manufactured homes. Add a covered porch to a factory-built home and you can make it look just like a traditional site-built home (if that’s what you want). It’s a great way to add depth and dimension to a house which is the most important element in curb appeal.
If your home is high enough off the ground your options for roofing are broadened. You can design the roof to simply continue down from the homes roof pitch which is what they did.
This photo of the building process and was found on a great little blog called Butterfly Musings.
The single wide below was one of the first featured homes on Mobile Home Living. It’s special to me because we bought our single wide without knowing the manufacturer so I began researching online and came across this home – its an almost exact replica of our home! You can read more about this home here.
This single wide has a combination porch and deck that circles around the home. It’s perfect because this home happens to be right beside a beautiful river and the view is awesome!
This next double wide manufactured home has a beautiful porch! Faux rock panels are used on the columns and it really makes a statement. This home was found on FauxPanels.com.
The single wide below is beautiful! Not only did it get new log siding but it also got a complete front porch. You can see the original home in the lower right corner – the transformation is gorgeous! The image is from Modulog.com.
One of my favorite blogs is My Hearts Song. Geneva and her husband have completely remodeled their single wide and the end result is spectacular. She does a great job of sharing their projects with her readers and answering questions. My Heart’s Song is a must-read blog for every manufactured homeowner.
This is their front porch construction and below is the porch beautifully decorated which is one of Geneva’s many talents. She can come to decorate my home anytime!
The double wide below is one of the most popular featured homes here on Mobile Home Living. It’s a great home with lots of customization, including a wrap-around porch that runs the entire length of the front of the home and the width. You can read all about the home here.
Did you know that Better Homes and Gardens once featured a single wide remodel in their magazine? We featured it here on Mobile Home Living too! One of the weird things about the feature was the fact that BHG called the home a trailer house – I just always thought that was weird (and sorta rude – why couldn’t it just be a mobile home?) Anyway, it’s a gorgeous home that went through an extensive remodel but the end result is astonishing.
Here’s the home in the midst of construction. The owners added double the square footage with the addition of a screened-in front porch and roof-over.
Adding a Porch to a Manufactured Home
Building a porch or deck onto a manufactured home is a bit easier than building onto a site-built house. Since most areas don’t allow a true attachment to a manufactured home the building aspect is just a tad bit easier – you won’t have to modify the home much. The porch and roof will simply ‘butt against’ the home instead of being attached via framing. You should definitely check your local code before building!
Manufactured home porch designs can range from simple decks to ornate porches. The design you chose will probably impact your life and your home more than you realize. Choose wisely!
Once you chose your porch design and size you can utilize the free plans and get complete material lists and schematics, both invaluable items to have when building anything.