How to Build a Perfect Deck by Yourself

Hey everybody my name is Chris and this is my shop partner Oots and in this video we're gonna be building a deck. I'm gonna show you just how easy it is but before we start I want to thank Lowe's for sponsoring this video. Let's get started. My first step is to head to Lowe's deck designer so that I can design exactly the deck that I want. It's a free easy to use software you don't need to download you simply just use it straight off of their website and you can pick from either pre-designed templates or start from scratch like I will do. I'll also leave a link down in the description so you can check it out as well. I'm gonna go for a nice simple single level deck with a railing and a single set of stairs but you can make your deck any size, shape, height and with as many levels and stairs as you want. You can also customize the type of the decking material such as wood or any of the man-made materials as well as the color of the deck and the styles of the railings. It really lets you do whatever you want. It will then give you a real-time estimate of material costs so that you can check to see if you're within budget or not and make any adjustments. Then you can print the full plans which will include the materials list including all the hardware you will need as well as the layouts, the deck parts, nomenclature and all sorts of other good information to help you build the deck. Now before you order your materials go to your building assessor and make sure that the plans will meet all the local codes. If they do not you can easily go back and make adjustments and if everything is good to go you can get your building permit and order your materials. Then you can take the print outs to Lowe's and they will pull all the materials for you and for just a few extra bucks they'll deliver it right to your door. All right the most important part of your deck build is laying it out properly. If you don't have a good square layout to start you're gonna run into a lot of problems. So what I did is I stake a stake near the house down there and then I build these stakes with battens on them so that I can move my strings around. I'll measure out from the house to the outside edge of what my farthest post is going to be. I do that on both sides then I measure the distance between my outside posts this way and then I repeat that measurement out here and then now what I'll have is a parallelogram. Now in order to get that parallelogram square you measure from corner to corner. So if I'm two inches longer on this corner than that corner what I'll do is I'll shift this string one inch this way and that string one inch that way to meet in the middle. Check it again make sure I'm square and then we can move on to laying out where the posts need to get drilled and dig those out. The plans will tell me the spacing of my posts so I'll use a tape measure and some flags to mark out where the post holes need to be. The ground here was really nice and soft so we were able to just use post hole diggers rather than a gas engine auger which you can always buy or rent. Where I live the code requires us to dig holes at least 42 inches down to get past the frost line. We're gonna pour our concrete into 12 inch forms and then set our posts on top using post anchors. There are several ways of setting posts which include burying the post in the concrete and this is one of those crucial things that you should ask your inspector about. The forms are usually 48 inches tall so I will mark and cut a level line across all my forms so that they're sitting just a couple inches above ground which will allow for water runoff. Then I will backfill dirt in between the whole wall and the forms and then tamp them down tight. Next I will begin mixing and pouring all of my concrete. I rented a concrete mixer for this step as trying to mix all that concrete by hand in a wheelbarrow is really backbreaking work. Just follow the directions on the concrete mixer and the concrete and then pour it into the forms tamping it periodically until they are full. You also want to be careful not to breathe in that concrete dust. It's best to use a respirator but I just held my breath while I emptied the bags and made sure I wasn't breathing it in. Then I'll smooth the top to give it a very slight convex top to help with water runoff. Then I'll insert my post anchor bolt until it's about one inch above the concrete and in line with my layout lines. Then I'm gonna lay down some landscape fabric and then put down some rocks. This is going to help with water runoff and also prevent weeds from growing under the deck. All right so now that my footings are poured and the post anchors are attached I need to figure out the distance of my post. To do that I make a mark on the house which will be the height of the deck and then I subtract the deck board thickness, the beam thickness, and the joist thickness which for this deck which we're using two by eight beams and joists is 15 and a half inches. Make a mark on the house. I come down and put a line at 15 and a half inches on a stake then I'll run that line all the way across making sure that it's level. So once I know my line is level I'll move the outside down half of an inch to give the deck a slight slope to allow for rain runoff. Once the line is where I want it I can measure from the post anchor to that line and get the height of my post. I use a miter saw to cut the post and I only have a 10 inch miter saw so I have to rotate that six by six post in order to cut it all the way through. Coating your area might not require you to use a six by six but I like to have the extra wide post because it'll give me some wiggle room to make sure that my beams are square when I mount those next. These pieces are called beams and I made these by nailing two 2 by 8s together. I'll use four 10 penny galvanized nails and I'll space that every 16 inches to make the beams. These brackets hold the beams to the post and once I secure the post to the post anchors I'll make sure that the beams are square and then secure those to the post using those brackets. And this is where I'm double checking that the beams are square before I actually secure those to the post. It's important to add nails to every hole on all of those brackets. Next I'll begin laying out my joists every 16 inches. I put the first joist next to the house and make sure that it's nice and straight. Then I measure out from that in increments of 16 inches and then I'll make a line and put an X on the side closest to the house. Then when I put my board next to the line I know that the center of the board needs to be where that X is. Then I can start putting down my joists. I usually toe nail them into place with a nail which makes adding the hurricane brackets a lot easier. Because my deck is 20 foot wide and they don't make boards that are 20 feet long I have to support two separate joists on that center beam. Then to give the joists some extra rigidity I add some blocking along that center beam between the joists. This will prevent the joists from wanting to ever roll over. Then I strike a nice square line with my chalk line and trim the joists so that they are all nice and straight before I add what is called a rim joist. I make a little temporary support block that I nailed to the underside of the joist to help support the rim joist while I nail it and level it into place. Then all the joists are attached to the rim joist using joist hangers. Once I secure the rim joist I'll knock those support blocks back off. Now I'm only adding the rim joist to this side right now. I have a little trick that I'm going to use later on to make sure my full deck board at the other side of the deck matches up perfectly with the other rim joists and I'll show you that a little bit later on. Now it's time to add the decking. I'll take a drill bit and countersink all the holes near the edges of the boards to prevent splitting. Then without pre-drilling I put two screws in every 16 inches into those joists that are underneath. As we add the boards we're gonna stop about every fourth board and take a measurement near the house and at the far end of the deck to make sure that our deck boards are remaining nice and square as we go along. Now these deck boards are super wet still and so we will be pushing them snug against each other then screwing them down. As they dry they'll shrink a little bit and gaps will form between the boards that will allow for rain and dirt to escape. Now if you're working with dry boards you'll probably want to add an eighth of an inch gap between the boards as you go. Now before I screw down my last four deck boards I'm gonna lay them into place and make a mark along my joist. Then I'll move my mark one and a half inches which is the width of the rim joist then strike a line with my chalk line and cut the joist there. Now when I add the rim joist that last deck board is gonna land perfectly flush with that outside rim joist. As each deck board is slightly different in width it'd be nearly impossible to measure this out beforehand way back when you add that first rim joist and have that last deck board land perfectly flush with that outside rim joist. Most likely you'd have to rip down that last deck board and it just wouldn't look quite as nice as having a full deck board right out to the very end. So now I add my outside rim joist and all the brackets for it and then I can finish adding my decking boards all the way out to the end. Then I'll put a nice 2 by 12 skirt all the way around the deck. Now I'm going to start working on the post for the railings. Railings are another one of those critical areas that you need to make sure that you're up to code on. So ask your inspector what the minimums are for railing height, the way the railings are secured to the deck, and the gaps between the balusters. I took my circular saw with the blade set to one and a half inches deep and I made several relief cuts that allow me to break out all that waste with the hammer. Then I'll clean up the notch with a chisel and a block plane. Now there are other ways to make these notches as well but this is just how I like to do it. Then I'll add a little 45 degree bevel to the post to make it look nice. I lay out the post locations making sure I'm meeting the minimum spacing required by code and make sure they're plumb and square before drilling my first hole for the carriage bolt. After adding the carriage bolt I'll recheck that it's plumb and square before drilling my second hole. Then I'll add the second carriage bolt, add the washer and nut, and tighten those down with a wrench. Next I measure between the railings and cut a 2 by 4 for the top and bottom that will support the balusters. We use some cutoffs and our speed squares to space these nice and evenly. Just like with the posts I wanted to add a nice bevel to all the balusters but instead of doing those a few at a time on the miter saw I decided to just line them all up, strike a line, and cut the bevel all at once using my circular saw. So I want to show real quick how to lay out the baluster spacings. They have to be a minimum of four inches and it's a little bit tricky so what I did is I measure the inside width between the railings which is 60 and 7 8ths here and then you add the thickness of one of the balusters and I converted them to decimals down here because the calculator doesn't work in fractions like that. So what I do is I divide this the sum of these two numbers the width plus a baluster and then I divide it by that four inch minimum requirement and that gives me 15.5. Then you round up to 16 so that's the number of balusters I'll end up using. Divide that original width by 16 and that's going to give me 3.887 inches. Then I'll take a fraction converter chart and find what fraction is going to be closest and I'm just proud of 7 8ths. 7 8ths is 0.875 so I'll essentially make a spacer that is 3 and 7 8ths inches wide and that way I can get a perfect width all the way across and I'll cut this just proud of 7 8ths and then I'll have my perfect layout. You will have to do this for each span between railings as they're all going to be different measurements. We just countersink a hole and add a screw to both the top and the bottom of the baluster. Now we're going to dig a spot and make a foundation for our stairs. We add a few inches of gravel, pack it, make it level and put concrete footers down to support the stair stringers. You can also pour a nice concrete landing pad here as well. Next I cut my stair stringers off-camera. Those are one of the more tricky parts of the build and require a little more explanation than I have time for in this video. So rather than making the video that much longer I decided to just add some links down below to some other good videos that explain how to layout and cut those stair stringers. Then I add my kicker boards, deck boards and railings just like I did on the rest of the deck and I can move on to the last part which is adding the railing cap. I use regular deck boards for my railing cap and cut 45 degree miters for the corners. We're going to let the deck dry and season over the winter and into next spring before we put stain on the deck and then we're going to add some lattice and do some landscaping around it and it'll look really really nice and last for years to come. I hope you enjoyed watching this video and learn some things. Thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next time.