The Deck - Saga Complete

This was the project I thought would never end.  Ongoing since Thanksgiving and filled with plenty of rain, snow, mud and multitudes of other distractions.  The construction aspects are now complete although I do have a few details to cleanup - mainly fix a gap or two and change a few screws to slightly longer ones for a bit more long term safety. Once the cleanup is done, we'll give it a coat of stain if we get the chance before selling the house.  Otherwise, the new owner will have the opportunity to pick their favorite color stain.

In the end, I am glad I did it myself (with some help from my dad and a good amount of help from my wife and kids) even though I ended tweaking a knee resulting in a minor surgery on it.  I am pretty happy with the result and I think I was still able to do it in a way that added value without breaking the bank.

The last major piece was the steps and guard rails.

This wasn't easy by any means.  While waiting for the weather to clear up so I could do the concrete work for the landing, I started drawing up the stringers, rail, steps and such.  I got a bit ahead of myself though and decided to start with a paper stringer template with the plan to create a template out of thin plywood (luan) which is reasonably cheap and seemed like a good idea.  I definitely recommend completing all the concrete work before creating any stringer template of any sort - no matter how hard you plan - there will surely be some difference in height between what you plan for and what actually is produced.

I think the template idea was ok but the execution could have been improved.  I would recommend using contact cement if you want to use a paper template (onto a plywood template) to start with.  This did give me a rough idea of what it was going to look like when done which was a nice validation before cutting any wood.  If doing it again though, I think I would skip a paper template but still use a plywood version.  The next problem was just accurately cutting out the plywood template - first make sure that all your lines are straight/parallel/square.

Cutting extremely accurately with a circular saw is difficult if you don't have a lot of experience or good equipment. I could have done this with my jigsaw but I don't think it would have resulted in as flat/smooth of cuts as desired.  I was able to use my sliding compound miter saw to do a little touch up on a couple spots but if those spots had been anywhere other than where they were at then they would not have been accessible.  Since I ended up doing some concrete after the template, I had to adjust the template further to come up with the final layout.  This tweaking involved gluing a few small spacers to the template tread areas to fix an issue with the total height which was off enough to warrant fixing.   Eventually I had the template in a usable shape and it was time to start shaping the actual stringers.

I had recently seen a technique on This Old House where they used a router and a template piece to make sure that all their stringers matched.  I decided to do that so I picked up a reasonably priced 1.5" x .5" router bit with bearings at the tip. I learned a few lessons from this - make sure you cut the rough pieces pretty close to start with - like 1/8-1/4" so that you don't require as much routing.  When I researched the bit, I noted some complaints about the nut coming off the bearings allowing it to come apart.  I tried playing it smart and put some Loctite Blue 242 thread locker (all I had laying around) on the nut to ward off that problem.  It did work - for a while.  On the last stringer on the last section (the bottom of the bottom step) the nut came off while I rounded the end to the bottom and couldn't see what was going on. It felt like it was acting odd and I immediately stopped and found it was chewing up the bottom.  Fortunately, I knew my concrete wasn't totally level so I was able to shave the bottom flat and use it on the high section of concrete.  I took some time to relax a second and hunt for the missing bearings and nuts.  I finally found them and it looks like one bearing overheated and I suspect that caused the Loctite to overheat and fail which allowed the nut to come off.  The overheated bearing was burned up and useless - you can see that here if you look close.  Not sure whether it could be classified as a design defect or whatnot.  Anyways, at least I didn't need the bit for further work here. I'll probably order some spare bearing kits just in case for any future projects.

When I was done routing/cleaning up with a rasp - the stringers were all looking pretty good.  I used some Simpson components to tie the stringers to the deck - you bend them to your particular stringers which was easy to do even by hand.  I used SD screws instead of nails and followed the instructions. I was able to level the stringers pretty well.  What I didn't check at that time was depth and I found later that bow in my rim board was causing bow across my 40" length away from the deck which left me a ~1/4 inch "high" spot in the center. I decided to roll with it and center the tread boards with even gaps at the back edge corners.  The boards will still shrink some yet so it shouldn't be noticeable.  Putting the treads and riser boards on was straight forward overall.

I did wait to tie the bottom posts into the stringers until I had the treads mostly in place.  The concrete anchors I used have holes at the post for either nails/SD screws or bolts.  I used SD screws for now but want to replace (or simply supplement) them with the optional 2 bolts per post.  I'm not sure it will increase the stiffness any (probably not) but at least there won't be any screws pulling out over time.

The last part of the steps was the railing/balusters.  This was the most time consuming part of the steps.  Getting everything plumb was a challenge (let alone keeping it that way while putting pieces in place).  Cutting the rails to the correct angle took creativity since my table saw and miter saw didn't support the angles I needed very well.  My biggest complaint is the baluster connectors - they are a "dual" use pieces where you can leave it as use and use for flat mounting (like at the deck top) or spin the bottom of the piece which produces an angle so you can screw it into the stair rail to support plumb balusters.  They were pretty painful to mount straight and get everything plumb.  If I were to do another deck, I would spend the extra money and get face mount rails which I like as well (if not more) but do appear to cost a touch more.  This part was definitely a 2 person job - love my wife and her patience with this part and I couldn't have done it without her. 

I learned a lot building this deck and hope I can use that to benefit someone (kids, future grand kids maybe, neighbors, etc) someday down the road.

Hope you enjoyed my saga and that Jesus blesses any projects you attempt.

Proverbs 24:3
Through wisdom a house is built,
And by understanding it is established;

The Deck - Saga continues

The Deck - the saga begins

Over Thanksgiving week I made some progress on the deck - all 6 holes dug and concrete poured.  I ended up working on it spur of the moment because the weather was good.  This was more work than I had hoped.   I didn't have time to get a cement mixer and hand dug the holes (about 24-26" deep).  I purchased 3 12" x 48" long concrete tube forms and cut them in half. I took scrap 2x10 from the old deck and made 14" square (interior) by 6" deep frames.  I placed and filled the open frames with concrete first. Prior to this I made plywood tops/covers (cut in half for easier removal).  I cut round holes in the tops and tacked the tubes to them. After I filled the frames I added the cover/tube combo and filled them.  After 1-2 hours, I put the anchors (j/l-bolts) in the concrete and smoothed it again.  I ended up using 25 80lb bags of 5000psi high early strength concrete.  I could have probably gone with a lower strength concrete. At this point it was the Friday after Thanksgiving and I needed to wait around 3 days for the concrete to cure.

Here are a variety of pics from the work.  Probably leave some of these artifacts on a disk for the new owners of this house once we sell (hopefully this spring).

          

Below is the hardware used to meet code for the railings; either one of these is used directly with each rail post or 2 are used on either side of a post (to joist or blocking depending on location).

Below is the box of bulk aluminum balusters I purchased from Lowe's. Buying the 64 packs was cheaper by a bit ($2 each versus around $2.50 from what I remember). There were other places on the internet with cheaper prices but I figured Lowe's was fairly reliable and quality should be reasonable which left me with less worries.  The only thing I *may* have done differently though would be using a face mount baluster - I think that would be easier to install than what I will have to do.  The face mount balusters may be more expensive though - doesn't really matter to me at this point since I am pretty much committed to my plan so I didn't look into it.

 Here are the connectors for the balusters (one shown) - they come with screws.

Here are the connectors for the balusters on the stairs.

These HeadLOK conectors were used to tie the 2 2x10's together to make beams and I also used them to connect the front rim joist to the other joists (3 vertically through face of rim into the end of each joist). I am able to sink these enough that I should not have a problem mounting the rail posts.

I used some #10, #9 and #8 structural screws for the various hardware connections (post bases, post caps, inner flange joist hangers, full hurricane ties, single side hurricane ties).  My links may not be to the exact ones I used but they are close - make sure you use Triple galvanized/G185 coated items.  I had some trouble sourcing hardware (finding it in-stock) so I had to shop around or order online for a few items.

Below are the collated screws for the screw gun I bought (shown farther below).  This is for the decking mainly.

I used these LedgerLOK screws to tie the deck to the house for lateral support.  In my case, the ledger isn't transferring any load to the house foundation but simple stiffens things up for lateral support.

Here is the collated screw gun I picked up.  I have not tried it yet.  I skipped the cordless model since I don't see heavy use of this after the fact and batteries tend to be dead (either discharged or just plain unusable in one prior case) when I do need to use tools.

Here are the concrete tubes I used.

Here is my first batch of concrete.

I continued working on a model of the deck using SketchUp 2014 (free/non-commercial version).  I had tried using this before and found it somewhat painful to use.  I had wanted it to work differently than it does.  I finally broke down and watched some how-to videos on it from their site and things improved.  There are still a number of things I don't like about it but for a relatively simple project it works pretty well. It doesn't look like they offer the free version any longer (I didn't check very hard) so I don't know if the newer versions work better.

Below is where the design is at right now.  It is a basic freestanding design using drop beam construction.  I did attach it to the house for some later support (which is in the building code). It is mildly over-engineered by choice and should last a very long time.  There are still a couple of minor adjustments to make with some due to the hardware for mounting rail posts.  I'll mention that more later.  I also don't have the steps included yet; I am still working out the details for that. According to code I will require more concrete work for the steps.

I took a couple days off to work on the deck before my parents arrival for Christmas. I was able to prep a bunch of stuff but rain prevented real progress. Now it is nearly Christmas and my parents are here.  My dad has helped out a ton to get the posts, beams and most joists in place.  I am grateful for that extra help - it is just a difficult time to have friends help with all the holiday planning and such going on.  Even with the extra help, I wasn't able to get as much done as desired since a huge amount of rain moved in.  It has been raining for 2-3 days now and our clay soil is impossible to work in; you sink well over an inch and it is slippery as can be.

So far there have been various challenges that we were able to overcome for the most part.

• One of the early challenges was getting the 16' 2x10's home - for that I used our 5x10 trailer and made 2 upside down u shape pieces that fit against the side of the trailer and go 24" high to the top of the sides.  I bolted those to the sides of the trailer.  I took the tailgate off the trailer which then allowed my to hang 3' of the 2x10's over the front and 3' off the back of the trailer.  I used tie downs wrapped around the wood (centered in 2 piles) and attached to hooks on the trailer walls to keep it from moving.  This worked really well (and safe) - no problem with the wood hitting the truck while centered.  
• Another early challenge included unavailability of various tools or hardware locally (without ordering or driving an hour or 2). 
• After reviewing the tension ties along with my model I realized that the final 2 joists were going to be too close to allow the tension tie to fit between them.  I ended up moving the last interior joist flush with the exterior joist to provide the room.  I'm hovering around code compliance on the 16" OC spacing but it is real real close. The good news is this should strengthen the stair stringer connections quite a bit.
• We also had some difficulty getting things squared (quickly) - this was due to both differences board to board and a huge amount of rain which caused some warping in number of places.  A large bar clamp helped get some pieces in the desired location before screwing together. 

The only bad thing so far was tweaking a knee while doing the concrete work.  Doctor indicates it is probably the meniscus and that I have about a 50% chance of it healing on its own.  After a cortisone shot the pain is lower at least.  It is slowing me down a bit but things still need to get done so..  As long as God grants me the strength, I'll continue working through this.  My bigger concern is my father overdoing things.  My parents have now headed home and I think my dad survived ok - but pretty tired.  Praying that the back-pain won't be too bad after he gets home.

I figure one more blog entry will cover the remaining work.  Off to Lowe's to measure the stair stringers so I can add it to my SketchUp model.

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and were able to celebrate Jesus birth wherever you may live. I know some readers live in places where it is crime to worship Jesus and punishments are atrocities against mankind - my heart and prayers are with you.

The deck - the saga begins

This is part one of what will be 3 posts.
The second post is The deck - The saga continues

As we continue working on the house with the goal of cleaning it up to put on the market in 2016, I am fixing up eyesore projects.  One of those projects is the deck.  Early on I got a couple contractor quotes for replacing it and they ran from ~$2800-4800.  I wasn't real thrilled with those quotes - either too much money, too low quality components or a combination thereof.  My next thought was doing it myself - I bounced that around for a long time and slowly worked myself back (with lots of input from the wife) to only replacing the guard rail and deck boards. That was the minimum I was willing to do even if we are selling the place.  I just feel it is wrong to leave things like this to a new owner - going by the "do unto others as you wish them to do unto you" philosophy.  I get "advice" to the contrary from some folks/family but it is part of my values that I refuse to give up.  A new owner can rip it down and start over if they desire but at least no one should get hurt in the mean time.

The rail was a mess, unsafe and couldn't meet current code in any way. Here you can see the overall condition. I never really liked this deck. 

Here you can see the result of me using only a little effort to break a post off.  The post had been notched so only 1/4 of the 4"x4" post was supporting the horizontal rails.  Current code requirements could not be remotely met by this. 

The flooring was pretty bad - it is over 20 years old and hadn't been kept stained like it should have.

I tagged this project to work on near the end of everything else which turned out to be a mistake. I had dug along one of the posts a while back when I had considered doing the full rebuilt - I wanted to see if the post had concrete.  I only looked enough to see there was concrete and to note that there wasn't much concrete.  Now jump forward a month or 2 and when I looked at the post again (after a couple rain storms), I noticed that the post was nearly rotted in half at the concrete.

Sigh.  Not what I wanted to find. The dirt on the lower right side should actually be the post.

I had hoped to have all my major projects completed by the end of the year (2015) but this one is going to be close.  I am going to do it myself to save money and to still allow me to put the level of quality that I desire into it.

If possible and safe I will reuse a few pieces of the structure.  I am going to use the existing deck boards to build square base forms for the concrete footings (remove and take to dump when done). I'm not sure if the joists are salvageable. I would likely need to flip them over to avoid hitting the partial nails left in them after ripping the flooring out.  It looks like the floor nails used were non-galvanized spiral shank items.  Most had rusted to less than half their diameter.  I'll likely just buy new ones - not sure it is worth the effort to salvage.  Maybe I can find another use for them - have to think on that.

I decided early on that I wanted to at least use metal balusters. I hunted around and actually found that I could get boxes of 64 from Lowes for a price of ~ $1.71/each.  Wood balusters listed for around $0.97/each which was acceptable to me.  There are places online with cheaper prices but I figured it was worth the slight premium to work with someone I know versus a site I don't and where quality and returns might be issues.  Shipping to my local Lowes is free and my order was ready the next day.

I picked up a Senco collated screw gun (DuraSping 332AC)  and a pail of 2.5" coated screws to start with.  That should speed up laying the deck boards. I figure I can find a use for the screw gun for other projects down the road - especially with a new house.

I bought one roll of flexible flashing to go over the tops of the joists.  I will be cutting the 9" wide material down to maybe 3" strips which should cover the tops of the 2x10 joists.

I also picked up a gallon of Copper-Green wood preservative so I can coat the ends of all cuts and such.

I have a 4-5 books on deck construction with copyright dates as new as 2011 and I found it troubling that they show some non-code compliant designs in a few cases.  Lots of web sites show non-compliant items as well (like notching rail posts).  Maybe that can be done under certain circumstances in some locale but not around here.

I am using some documentation from Strongtie (pdf here) to select the hardware and remaining fasteners. A nice "Handy Man How To" article on deck rail construction (here). Some other good/interesting reference material is this Youtube video (here). My county doesn't have any really good documentation on deck requirements (just references the "code") but Fairfax County, VA has some nice information which I found helpful in interpreting the "code" better - look here.  It looks like much/most of the prescriptive residential construction guide documents as produced by Fairfax county are based upon information from the American Wood Council found here.  It appears that counties modify the information to fit their needs though so be careful how you use it.  I also found this PDF via a google search (found at NADRA) that originate from "Professional Deck Builder • March/April 2007" which is about building techniques for decks that don't rot.

I still have a lot of decisions and drawing to make.  I am hoping to get concrete work done before the outside temp drops to an unacceptable level.  If I have to complete the rest in either the cold or the spring it likely won't be the end of the world - hopefully just not working in rain or snow. In the end, I am hoping to keep the price to around $1500.

May God bless you and your projects!
Scott