How hard is decking?

Letsgetmoving

I’ve spoken to our local planning dept in the last few years as we had a summer house at our last house which was on breeze blocks and they use the highest point of the garden. Good point though

Megaross

Honestly it's not that difficult, planning it is harder than executing it arguably.

I spent ages working out how I was going to build it so that I only had to order the minimal amount of material to reduce wastage/ leftover timber (mine was a funny shape so this was a bit of a mission working out lengths on the scribes).

Biggest tips I can give you - get your wood from a decent timber yard, 450mm centres, noggins to stop them twisting, short lengths of timber is far preferable to trying to force a full length into line (timber always has some warp/ bow), if there's any inspection pits leave a hatch, buy a decent impact driver, use cut end preserver liberally.

Other than that it's not rocket science. I managed it by myself in a couple weeks of evenings/ weekends and I dug the base by hand, took all the soil down the tip, brought 4 ton of shingle in, fixed a load of drainage that I found was leaking and obviously built the deck to a funny shape with an inspection hatch. All with very minimal carpentry experience.

It's rock solid, no bounce or bow or anything - I coat it up once a year with some deck stain and it looks great.

Andy_L

Letsgetmoving said:

We have moved to our new house and want to put decking down as there is a slight slope away from the house and a patio would need two stages/a retaining wall. Total area of 8m x 4m

My husband reckons he can do it himself/ with help from friends based on what he has researched. He is handy and has done fences etc… but to me this is a big job. Plus it’s our forever home so I want it done right.

Advice?

Decking rapidly looks tatty & requires far more maintenance than a patio

ashe

Andy_L said:

Letsgetmoving said:

We have moved to our new house and want to put decking down as there is a slight slope away from the house and a patio would need two stages/a retaining wall. Total area of 8m x 4m

My husband reckons he can do it himself/ with help from friends based on what he has researched. He is handy and has done fences etc… but to me this is a big job. Plus it’s our forever home so I want it done right.

Advice?

Decking rapidly looks tatty & requires far more maintenance than a patio

I'd def agree with that. I'd much rather power wash a patio now and then rather than sand and paint / stain decking 

_Sam_

This is from the guidance on permitted development: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/permitted-development-rights-for-householders-technical-guidance

"references to height ... is the height measured from ground level. Where ground level is not uniform (for example if the ground is sloping), then the ground level is the highest part of the surface of the ground next to the building."

We too are building the deck soon; I have searched through several threads on this forum about composite decking, and quite a few people say that it scratches very easily - so in the end we decided to go with hardwood instead.

This video is rather encouraging in how easy it looks to build   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsPQM6JPZJ8

ThisIsWeird

Have I mentioned that it would be complete insanity to use timber posts in the ground?!

And I'd only use timber for the joists if it was very well treated (eg, given another good dose when completed, so that all the freshly cut ends were soaked), fully DPC'd from the posts, and with a good ventilation gap underneath  between it and the weed-suppressed ground.

If you don't, your heart will sink as surely your decking will in 10 years time. 

Bradden

ThisIsWeird said:

Have I mentioned that it would be complete insanity to use timber posts in the ground?!

And I'd only use timber for the joists if it was very well treated (eg, given another good dose when completed, so that all the freshly cut ends were soaked), fully DPC'd from the posts, and with a good ventilation gap underneath  between it and the weed-suppressed ground.

If you don't, your heart will sink as surely your decking will in 10 years time. 

Please don't suggest timber posts would be insanity.. it's incorrect - UC4 treated timber is fine for permanent ground contact.

If you want to keep it out the ground concrete deck posts are great.

Dek Blok Dekpost | Landscaping Products | Supreme Concrete

This tape is good for protecting timber at ground level.

Deck Tape® - Ultimate Protection Tape | Walther Strong

JohnB47

If you don't already have one, a mitre saw would be invaluable. No manual sawing and all joints nice and true (90 degrees or otherwise). I bought one a couple of years ago and now wish I'd bought one 40 years ago.

ThisIsWeird

Bradden said:

ThisIsWeird said:

Have I mentioned that it would be complete insanity to use timber posts in the ground?!

And I'd only use timber for the joists if it was very well treated (eg, given another good dose when completed, so that all the freshly cut ends were soaked), fully DPC'd from the posts, and with a good ventilation gap underneath  between it and the weed-suppressed ground.

If you don't, your heart will sink as surely your decking will in 10 years time. 

Please don't suggest timber posts would be insanity.. it's incorrect - UC4 treated timber is fine for permanent ground contact.

If you want to keep it out the ground concrete deck posts are great.

Dek Blok Dekpost | Landscaping Products | Supreme Concrete

This tape is good for protecting timber at ground level.

Deck Tape® - Ultimate Protection Tape | Walther Strong

Fair do's - that's all good info.

casper_gutman

Those Dekposts look like a good product. I tried to get hold of something similar when building a small deck and a log cabin during lockdown, but I think there were stock issues at the time.

I made something similar using recycled plastic fence posts, cutting them to length (buy posts of a suitable length so you can cut them into chunks without wastage) and notching the tops as with the Dekposts so the joists are supported in the notch not relying on the fasteners. That worked out cheaper, which was a bonus. As with the Dekposts, the aim is to have everything in contact with the ground made from a rot-proof material.

In my case the deck was small enough that I could mark out and dig the post holes, then make the whole frame, attach the posts and set it all up on blocks of scrap wood and spare bricks so it sat level with the posts suspended in the holes at the right depth. Only once it was all set up did I add post mix concrete in the holes around the posts. This made for a really easy way of getting everything level without needing too much hard work surveying the levels of all the posts, so could be a good approach but only if the deck is small enough that you can safely build and level the frame before it has any support from the posts.