- Expertise
- Carpenter Oak CPD Programmes
- Timber Frame Building Regulations and Planning Permission
- Architectural Design Services
- Encapsulation Panels
- Oak Frame Design
- Oak Windows, Oak Frame Doors & Glazing
- Commercial Oak Framing
- Cedar, Larch & Oak weatherboarding and Fixings
- Timber Framed Construction
- Roof Boarding
- Timber Engineering
- Modern Oak Staircase
- Encapsulation Systems
- Oak frame porch
- Complete Build
- Oak Frame Restoration & Conservation
- Self Build Log Cabin – Design and Build
Traditional, contemporary or unique Oak Frame Porch – what suits you?
A new timber framed porch can transform the look of an existing house adding interest and value as well as providing a buffer between indoor and outside space; helping to maintain the desired temperature inside and save energy. Carpenter Oak can construct a frame to any design of your choice or a design of your own.
Porches offer an inexpensive way to improve your home and may not need planning permission. Timber framed porches can be traditional or contemporary in style, ultimately Carpenter Oak can design something truly unique for your house. Sketch some ideas down and come and meet with one of our frame designers at The Framing Yard. An Oak frame porch price may vary dependent on design and crudely speaking the amount of timber and number of joints.
An oak frame porch can be a great introduction to your property. Adding ‘kerb appeal’ and unifying the feel of oak through your home, particularly if you have oak beams or a Carpenter oak extension to the rear.
A porch can provide a sheltered entrance or extend your living space outside, see below for some of our completed modern oak porch designs. We can recreate any of these for you and design them specifically for your home.
Will I need Planning Permission?
Adding a porch to any external door of your house is considered to be permitted development, not requiring an application for planning permission, provided:
- The ground floor area (measured externally) would not exceed three square metres.
- No part would be more than three metres above ground level (height needs to be measured in the same way as for a house extension).
- No part of the porch would be within two metres of any boundary of the dwellinghouse and the highway.
We advise that you check planning legislation in your area as there may be additional provisos e.g. in an area of outstanding natural beauty.
Come and visit our workshops in Devon and Scotland to see examples of our work, talk about your project and see the team who craft the frames. Keep an eye on upcoming events for opportunities to meet us in person and visit Carpenter Oak homes.
Meet the team
Thorsten Busse
Training Supervisor
Joined Carpenter Oak: 1996
Interview with Thorsten
What is the best project you have worked on and why?
Nags Head in Hargrave, North Hants, 2006. We built an extension to this 15th Century pub built in harmony with the original building and using huge pieces of timber. It was a highly satisfying job building such an old fashioned frame.
When not in the yard, what do you enjoy doing?
Being leisurely.
Biography
Thorsten completed a traditional apprenticeship as a Journeyman in Germany, he then relocated to Devon and became a self-employed carpenter/ timber framer for a few years. When Carpenter Oak relocated to their current dwellings, Thorsten was asked to complete a couple of frames with them and then became one of the very first employed carpenters in the spring of 1996. Thorsten has always been into carpentry, he has fond memories of his childhood days, always with a knife in hand to do a bit of whittling with whatever wood he could find, he enjoys working hands on with amazing material, and working in a traditional way. This brings about a general feeling of happiness and satisfaction within the job. He is really happy to be working at Carpenter Oak with great and extremely skilled people, that’s what makes the job: running big jobs with great people who all share a passion for building beautiful structures out of natural materials.
Chris Amey
Team Leader
Joined Carpenter Oak: 2012
Interview with Chris Amey
What is the best project you have worked on?
Probably Radley College in Oxford where we built an octagonal roof to their chapel extension. It had eight hips landing onto a pendant with St. Andrew’s cross between each and a dome-like lattice of compound-curved slings immediately below. The shape was the most complex I have ever worked on. Erecting on site was interesting – using radios to signal the crane some ten metres below us and harnesses to hang from the apex whilst fitting the sarking. The frame was also stained to darken the oak and the overall look of the chapel is now truly phenomenal. See the case study for some awesome photos and drone footage.
Another recent project was an extension to a listed Wealden Hallhouse in Hampshire. It was basically a replica of such a house tied onto an existing one via a link. Heavily oak framed with flying top plates, down braces, a crown post purlin, pre-Georgian hips, dragon beams with jettied joists and oak balustrades around a beautiful gallery. It will be fitted with lead light windows and brick herringbone infills to match the existing.
Also fitting a huge oak frame mezzanine to a beautiful old grain barn in Dorset with 7m beams up to 400x300mm in section which had to be woven into pockets in the existing walls via a spider crane inside the barn. This included creating and fitting a cantilevered staircase where each tread was a single block of oak appearing to sit perfectly on the tread below. The water-dried blocks were actually bored out from one end to slide onto steel poles and a steel frame hidden in the wall to one side. The effect was stunning.
Biography
After a childhood on the Somerset Levels in and around my grandparents’ smallholding with Jersey cows, goats, geese, chickens, pigs and bees; my grandfather seating chairs with rush we picked from the river as well as cane and seagrass, I fled the local town for the bright lights of London, studied art, drove vans and signed on for a bit.
My grandfather died, I inherited his hand tools and enrolled on a carpentry course at Hackney College. I fell in love with the craft the moment I started. It took me to quite a few different places: restoring Oak frame barns, cottages and oast houses in Kent, pulling teak and rock elm hull planks off the Cutty Sark in Greenwich and renovating ski chalets in the Alps. After that, me and my then partner decided to head for the South Hams in Devon to run a B&B by the sea and make sculptures and furniture.
Looking for a more reliable income after roughly four years of that, Carpenter Oak agreed to give me a job. Ten years on I can’t say I’ve ever looked back. It’s enjoyable and rewarding work, the frames and teams vary from project to project and we have a lot of fun figuring it all out together.
Thank you for everything you've done regarding our frame. We totally love it, and can't believe how quickly it went up! I really appreciate everything, I think Carpenter Oak are the best ever! We would always recommend to you to anyone looking for an oak frame.
Ali, Client
The frame has now been erected and we are absolutely delighted with it! Everyone has been very impressed with the calm, professional and pleasant way that Justin and his team went about the construction. It has been a very exciting and rewarding experience for us. We are really impressed with the quality of the workmanship and the final appearance of the frame.
D and M Sweet, Clients
I would like to thank you and all your team for the wonderful oak frame extension which you have made for me. From my very first e-mailed enquiry, and Lee Manning's quick response inviting me to visit the show barn at Cornworthy, to my visit to see the frame made and its erection here in Cornwall and all the e-mails in between, you have given me outstanding support and service. Every member of your team with whom I have contacted has been positive, helpful and enthusiastic - exactly what a novice like myself needs when making such life-changing decisions. The day the frame was erected will always stand out in my memory. I cannot thank you and your team enough.
Rosie, Client
Thank you for building us such a lovely frame. It was a pleasure to meet the team, to see the frame take shape and to enjoy it standing in proud solitude on its hillside for a few days before the walls went up.
