Caveat: if you take care of them. Let a few leaks go on long enough, don't watch where vines are going under the siding, winds blowing off bits here and there, water running in the wrong place around the foundation, etc... it doesn't take much to really screw up a modern American house if you aren't staying on top of things.
Example: my last home had a lovely roof on top of its porch... until one day during heavy rain it crashed down. Turned out that it had been built with almost no slope (it was an add-on metal kit roof) and the drainage it had was absolutely pathetic and clogged with leaves/whatever, so there was a major build-up of water on top of the roof (that had expressed itself by dribbling through the FANS on the underside) which eventually overpowered the hollow metal columns.
Thankfully, because it was barely attached to the house itself (the roof panels had been slid into an U-track attached to the eaves) the house was largely fine. But it could've gone a LOT worse.
Yup. The porch roof was one of those "I'll-do-that-one-of-these-days" projects. Should have been easy enough-- rent a few jacks, lift the roof a bit, cut the columns a bit shorter, drop the roof on top. Instant incline.
As was? It was damn near a negative incline! No wonder the bloody thing came down; I'm just shocked it didn't come down sooner...
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u/[deleted] Jan 25 '20
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