Porch Problems

One of the big issues with the house is the front porch--it looks like it could collpase at any minute. The condition of the porch was flagged during our inspection. We foregoed (forewent? What's the right word here?) having a structural engineer inspect before buying because...well, I can't remember why. Because we are cheap? Because it was a calculated risk? Because we wanted the house anyway, I guess.

After we closed, our biggest concern was that the front porch was a symptom of a bigger structural problem. If we just needed to rebuild the porch, we were prepared to handle that. But, if it turned out that the porch was falling off because the whole freakin' front of the house was falling, too, then we'd have some problems. Our worst-case scenario involved us driving up to the house and seeing something like this:

On Sunday, we had an engineer come to inspect the house. Thankfully, it looks like the porch itself is the only issue. It will be a complete rebuild, but that is something that we were planning on anyway. The rest of the house looks to be structurally sound, with only some minor repair needed to the foundation. And, since the inspection was done by a family member, the price was right (thanks Mike).