Decks

[Scoot]

Unlike most of the fellas who frequent this forum, I'm completely inept with building, fixing, and the making of anything. Despite this, I'm thinking about building my deck this coming spring. I'll spend some time at the local places in town looking for designs and ideas as well as pricing out materials, etc. Besides this, can anyone point me to a good resource of info on the topic? Relevant online info or a "Decks for Dummies" type book would be great. I know there's tons of books out there, there's even an actual "Decks for Dummies" book-- so I know that much. Which one would provide a relative rookie with a lot of good, basic info?

Thanks much!

[DTro]

I was in the same boat as yourself not too long ago and discovered doityourself(dotkom)

Learned everything I needed and then some

Check out the forums on decks......excellent reading

[MIKE IN lINO III]

You can also go to a lumber yard and design a deck of your choice. If you are going to pull a permit for it you will need to submit a plan to the biulding inspector or which ever county/city athority you need to notify, it's been awhile since my last build. They will help you determine that you have the correct size lumber for the job. DYI is an ecellent starting point.

I have built a few decks for my houses and friends. It's not that tough. Have a good plan and buy some beers for your buddies and have a good time.

Mike

[18 inch Crappie]

Home Depot has a do it yourself book that walks you through it. I used one by time Life, look at the book area in Home Depot there is like 5 different books that will walk you through it.

[Scoot]

Thanks fellas!

[bottomdweller]

Scoot if you have an idea of your design, take it to your local lumber yard. Brought mine there and I had never built one before and they were more than happy to answer any questions I had about building it. They even had a form for the stairs so all I had to do was trace them.

They walked me through the whole process. I ended up going with a composite decking, a little more jing but no staining ever. Gl

[Scoot]

Cool, thanks again.

Regarding composite decking, anyone know about Geodeck? I know it's pricey, but I'm told it's a really good product. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

[eurolarva]

You will want to go to the place where you get permits and ask them for a handout on composite materials. In Blaine the only one that was allowed was trex however this was a few years back. When you submit your plans to the city for permit be prepared to have to upsize your footings. All the new construction around my house had 4 x4 and the city made me use 6x6 and the footings had to be 12 inch diameter and at least 40 inches deep. Mine was 9 ft off the ground so that is why the beefed up wood. Just remember that the inspectors job is not to make your life miserable they are just trying to help make it safe. Also on the hand rails all balisters typically have to be less then 3 1/2 inches apart. When you add this up for composite materials you will see why people still use real wood for decks. My hand rails were from Timber tech and cost about 40 dollars a foot.

[bottomdweller]

I looked at geodeck and almost went that route scoot. I ended up with trex cuz the wife liked it better than geo. I think because of the color options. Shows whose boss. For railings I used trex posts with ornamental iron. Gl

[bigswede]

Used Geo Deck on a deck my brother and I built 2 years ago. Nice stuff to work with. It was requested by the homeowner. We are now in the process of doing 1 for the front of the house for them.