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Laying Out and Framing the Deck

Bob checks in with carpenter Bob Ryley as he lays out and begins to frame the deck.

Clip Summary

Bob checks in with carpenter Bob Ryley as he lays out and begins to frame the deck. The original deck has been removed and new concrete footings poured. Pressure-treated lumber is used to prevent any weather damage. Ryley explains the pitch techniques used to control water flow across the structure.
Hi, I'm Bob Vila. Welcome home again.

Its an exciting day around here. My windows have arrived from Marvin.

We're going to be showing you how to install a big Palladian window up on the third floor in the family room. And I've also got some replacement windows for the shed dormer.

And we've got a husband and wife masonry contracting team who are doing some repairs on some of the old chimneys on the third floor.

And the backyard, we've re-constructed the backyard deck. We'll show you how to reframe that.

Stick around.
It's good to have you home again.

Alright, we're going to get started today on the backyard deck. Which is really a deck area that was existing in the house right off of the kitchen.

And we decided to rebuild it.

Because, what was here started out, I think originally, as the back door stoop and then it kind of grew and there was a jumble of broken up rocks and concrete underneath .

We've cleaned everything out. We've put in our foundation. piers, which are twelve inch diameter concrete poured into cardboard tubes. And they go down four feet, which is really a critical thing when you live in a very cold climate where the ground will freeze up in the winter because you don't want your footings to heave up when the ground freezes. That'll cause the whole deck to kind of move and get lopsided.

The entire structure, as you can see, is all pressure treated lumber. We've used two by twelves, a pair of them here which are basically the girt for the deck and then we got a two by eight joists on top of that girt and cantilevered over an extra foot and a half . And we're just sticking to the dimension of the deck that was here because we don't really want to change anything because that would cause us to have to get a variance and I'll show you why. The original deck was built out right to of the property line and it butted right into a fence.

We've stopped the cantilever here because this is Where we'll have a nice broad set of steps leading down towards the grade.

Hi, Bob Riley.

Hi Bob. How's it going?

Pretty good.

Well, it looks like you and Danny have a lot of the work already accomplished. Why don't we talk first about what this diagonal doubler is all about. Why is this framed like that?

Well, what we have is a wraparound deck, which is gonna turn the corner. So we wanna pitch the water away from the house. And in order to do that...

In two directions.

In two directions, right. So in order to do that, what we've got, essentially, is sort of a hip.

Like on a hip roof.

Comin' through at a 45, so when you put put all of our decking on, it will all meet here. This will turn.

So all the one by four decking , which is gonna be redwood, will be coming in this direction up to here.

Correct.

And they'll all have a mitered cut on them.

Exactly, and then they'll take off in the other direction. Going around the house.

Okay. And that's the best way to do it, in order to, to have the water shed appropriately.

If you wanna shed it on a wrap-around, that's really about the only way you can do it.

How much of a pitch do you give the deck? We've got a twelve foot deck so we're pitching one inch.

About an inch.
And what's Danny up to over here?

We're just putting our last bolt on the on the band joist here.

Hi Danny, how you doing?

Hi, Bob.

So the band joist is the, the piece of wood that get's attached directly to the foundation. And all the deck joists are all hung off it, right? They don't sit on top of it?

That's correct.

Ok. And you're only coming out six or eight inches there, right?

Right. We're only comin' out six to eight inches. This is an epoxy system, anchor bolt system.

So, we're not using an expansion bolt?

No.
This is a, we drill a hole into solid stone and we inject the epoxy into there and then we set a piece of rod into the epoxy. And we have.

I see. So, all we're using is a threaded rod. Go ahead and cut that, cause you've only got a couple minutes grace for that.

So, we're just. Using threaded rod and then by putting epoxy in the back of the hole, there's really no chance of movement and I guess that's better than an expansion joint cause you don't have to worry about cracking the stone.

No. This is pretty good. You've got four minutes to work with it, and once you set the bolt, you've got fifteen minutes later and you can.

It mixes itself on its way in.

Okay, and now we to just take it in, and wait fifteen.

That's right.

Okay.

Just

With a little bit of spill out.

Just thread it in.

And of course we're only using galvanized fasteners, right?

Yup.

I think wherever possible, if you can avoid nailing some of the structural timber and putting it together with carriage bolts and stuff you're better off, right?

Oh definitely. Yeah.

Now what's that in your hand? Is that just a regular door stand?

It's just a regular hanger. But we have to hang this first one on this, the end of this.

Just take it out and flatten out the flange.

Oh, so you flatten one of the flanges out so that in fact it will wrap around the corner.

Yeah, it just right on the side.

And we'll just position that and put a nail on it.


OK.
How does that look, Danny?

Looks good.

And then we'll put the joist hanger on after the fact.

Alright is there a top and a bottom to these joist stands?

Yes, but like to top with an arrow going to the top.

But how do you determine? Is there a crown?

There's a crown to the joist itself.

So that you've looked at it and the whole purpose of that is that, if the two by eight has just a slight crown to it No, you want to put that crown facing up towards the top of the deck.

So that when the weight of the deck goes on, it evens out eventually.

OK.
So you've just got some kind of position there but we still have to put the joist hangers in place .

Yes, we usually do that after we've got them on.

After we got them on. And then we'll cut off the ends right, so they're all line up.

Exactly.

Good. OK. But we've to break for some messages and when we come back.

We're going to be up on the third floor, doing a little masonry work.

Don't go away.
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