All Decked Out For Summer
(Page 6 of 10)
June/July 1992
by John Vivian
Look down the long edge of boards and reject any with serious twists or warps, or with large knots or dark splits that will admit rot. Many experts recommend buying freshprocessed PT that's wet but still sawmill straight. All PT will want to "move" as it dries and shrinks slightly. However, fastened wet and straight, it will dry straight.
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If you need plywood for spacers and other places it won't show, buy "CDX," the cheapest grade glued for exterior use. If it will show, buy "finished-one-side".
Buying materials, don't be intimidated by the trade jargon of lumberyard workers. Tell them you don't pretend to be a house carpenter and are ordering lumber by actual measure to make the project come out right. Most will be delighted to help.
Layout & Foundation
Unless you live in the desert, you'll want to keep water out of the house. Locate the top of your ledger 3" below the adjoining house floor. Use a chalk-coated snap line fitted with a line level to outline top and bottom of the ledger on the house. Where the ledger will attach, remove siding to expose sheathing for 2" above to allow for planking and 2" wider on each side than the deck's width.
With a helper—and working out from the bottom of the ledger—use a level line of wire or hemp cord (not stretchy nylon twine) to sink stakes at the outer corners of the deck so their tops are a little lower than the ledger bottom. Use a carpenters' square and straight boards or lengths of cord to assure that all sides are equal and comers precise 90° angles. A line stretched across each diagonal must measure the same. Set nails into the stakes—tops at precise height and angle points. Locate other piers with line, stakes and nails.
To dig footings, set a pair of level strings on stakes in an "X" over the nails in your footing stakes—the stakes holding ends of string "X"s far enough from post holes to give you digging room, the string a foot above ground. Remove string, dig holes to below frost line and tamp soil well at the bottom and around sides.
Put in a 3"-thick concrete pad, replace string "X"s if need be to find center and set in your first block so it is level and square with the house. Using a 1/2" layer of mortar all around, set and level blocks and bricks as needed up to about 6" above ground level. As you go, fill the open center of blocks with concrete rubble, rocks or brick. Set wood-post attachment fittings into a thick pad of wet concrete on the top block with top-center of the fitting at the intersection of the string "X"s, the fitting level and square with the house. Bevel the concrete down and away from the fitting to shed water.
Next day, (or after your foundation inspection) tamp soil well around the footings. After the concrete cures in a week's time, assure a waterproof seal by coating the top of the pier with asphalt roofing cement. Now you have a footing worthy of the name!
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