The porch on the farmhouse had dirt pushed up against the wall, so I removed it and the porch came along with it, leaving a gaping hole. Covering up the problem with the dirt only caused the damage to escalate. So, last summer, I hired a contractor to rebuild it. It is a lean to style attached to the house, 10 x 14, not too large. Rebuilding it in the same footprint should have been straight forward, however; the contractor was useless and cut corners, plus had no clue how to do quite a few things, so did them wrong.
There was no vapour barrier under the floor and it was not insulated. The dog's water froze solid in the winter sitting on the floor. The siding was on backwards and improperly overlapped. I could go on and on, but the short story is, I had to hire a new contractor to fix the errors, or at least the most problematic ones and finish the porch because it was never finished. The new contractor seems to be excellent so far. The rain water was leaking through the wall into the porch as you can see in the photo, so the insulation had to be removed and replaced and the floor had to be removed and insulated. The old door was in a wrong size jam and allowed wind to penetrate the porch, so a new used door will be installed. The front door will also be replaced with a new used door. Both doors are insulated and have proper jams and screens.
The first contractor declared bankruptcy and is off the hook for the job. I would like to smack him upside the head a few times for taking my time and money and causing me the grief he has and the expense of hiring a competent man to fix the problems he caused. In this day and age, that is not acceptable, so I have to be a nice person and forget the transgression and the monetary loss. However, I will be grateful to finally have the porch completed. The new contractor feels he will take only 2 more days. The original contractor was working for 6 weeks - yes, 6 weeks for a three sided lean to porch. Unbelievable. At last, the porch will be finished and functional and I can work in it in winter without being frozen. Whew. Thanks, so much, new contractor. You are appreciated! Oh yeah, he is from Vancouver Island near home. Nice!