Building a deck

I've finally got to the point of being able to build a deck on our house. I'm sure that it can't be to difficult, but I have been known to make even the simplest task complex - just ask my wife. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]
I built a treehouse a couple of years ago that was kind of like an elevated deck, but this one will be attached to the new house. We are looking at building roughly a 16 X 20 rectangle on the back (westside) of the house. I'm figuring on using the standard CCA pressure treated lumber. One end will be 5' up & the other end will be about 11' up from the ground. We probably will have steps off the deck at the 5' up end.

Without going into alot more detail, are there any suggestions, do's or don’ts, ideas or any other advice out there in CBNland that you knowledgeable folks would like to share?

At the end where 11 foot support columns are required insure they are of adaquate size. They may have to be larger than at the five foot end.

Egon

Greetings Shade, how's that new house treating you [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

I suspect you are more than capable of deck building so I'll just pass along a couple of things I've learned (maybe the hard way [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img] )

Make sure to flash the deck interface to the house. Z-flash under the siding, on top of the deck framing should do. Deck boards will cover it. Of course, cut all your wild ends at once for a nice straight line. I like to run a router over the cut edge to match the factory radius on the boards. Bark side up on the boards. Railing has to safely support a beverage container of your choosing [img]/forums/images/icons/smirk.gif[/img]

Other than that, have fun [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Shade,

Get yourself to your local library and check out a few little books on deck building. Sunshine Press has some. I'm sure Time/Life Publishing does, too. There ought to be quite a few others. I think reading through those would be a great place to start.

Shade,

I think the place people make the most mistakes with decks are where they attach to the house and how the support posts are set. The attachment to the house is very important. Here in Atlanta you will hear news stories every couple of years where a deck full of people fell because it was nailed to the side of the house. If your house has siding this is what I like to do. Remove a couple of courses of siding so that you can mount a ledger board to the side of the house. Normally this would be placed about 2" below your door threshold if you were using 1" deck boards. I prefer to run carriage bolts through the rim joist of the house to the interior but lag bolts will work. Run flashing like RobS mentioned and cut the siding to go around the ledger board. On a 16' deep deck I would run 2x10's on 16" centers or 24" centers for 2x decking. You can use 2x8's on that span but I like decks without any bounce to them.

For the posts I like to dig a 12" hole below frost line and place a Sono tube form, cardboard form tube, that will sit 6" above grade. Fill these with concrete and place metal post bases that raise the post above the concrete before the concrete sets. For a 20' deck I would run three 6x6 posts. A built up beam of 3 2x10's will sit on top of the posts and the joist on top of the beam. Be sure and stagger the joints on the 2x10's that make up the beam. I would also set my post line 2' in from the outside of the finished deck surface. This reduces the span for the joist and it just looks better to hide that beam and posts in the shadows of the deck. I am also a big fan of metal connectors like joist hanger and post to beam connectors. They are a pain to put in but if you look at the engineering specs they add a tremendous amount of strength for little cost.

There are may different ways to build a deck and some will think of my description as over built. I tend to do that and not think about it again. Gary's suggestion of buying a book about deck building is a good one if you haven't done it before. Deck building is a fun family project and it isn't rocket science so have a good time.

MarkV