nmilne
7th January 2006, 12:22 AM
Hi all ... I'm just contemplating my first decking project at my home, as I have a large rear area on the house that is currently unused. My woodworking and joining skills are best described as basic :rolleyes: but a decking project seems like quite an achievable thing to undertake, and should keep my bike motors together for longer as a bit of a diversion ;)
To keep things interesting, the area that I want to deck in isn't square but is a sort of half octagon shape (of sorts) and there is an existing small balcony/staircase leading down into the area that I'm hoping not to tear down and replace. Oh, there's also a rather large tree in the middle of the decked area that I want to deck around :)
I've been doing a bit of reading around this site and others about timber sizes, however without being particularly experienced in this area I wanted to get some feedback on design and timber types/sizes before I confuse myself too much. I've drawn up some basic plans and have an approach:
http://vsmr.net/files/deck.jpg
The grey area in the design is the wall of the house. The brown/yellow section is a small balcony with handrail that has an angled staircase descending into the garden are (and inconveniently into the space I wish to deck :p ). And, of course, the green circle is the location of the tree, adjusted slightly for where it sits in relation to the expected top of the deck height.
Appologies for the lack of scale (this didn't make it out of visio), but for the most part the stumps are in a grid separated by 1.2 meters in each direction (so 1.2m bearer span and 1.2m joist span, the joists at 450mm intervals). I'm also planning on attaching a bearer to the posts that hold up the balcony area and staircase. I decided not to use the side of the house to attach bearers directly to because at the level I want to deck at they're just slats, as the house itself is up on stumps.
The decking will run top to bottom fairly simply, except for the bits around the tree (which should still be fairly straight forward) and the bit that intrudes into the stairwell. I'm planning here to actually use the 2nd lower step on the stair to attach the end of the joists to and to make up a funky triangular bit of decking in a frame of sorts to fit into this area (I can feel pain here already), in order to avoid pulling the stair out and rebuilding it, although I'm getting the feeling that the latter option might end up being easier in the long run.
In terms of material I'm currently thinking:
Stumps - concrete 100x100 (the type with the steel rod jutting out the top) cemented on top of packed dry concrete
Bearers - treated pine, 100x75 [width by height] (or perhaps 100x100?)
Joists - treated pine, 50x100 [at 450mm intervals]
Decking - 100x50, undecided on type of wood yet
As you can probably tell I'm something of a woodworking noob and haven't tackled anything more than bench building, so I'm not clear on the appropriate grade of treated pine to use and other such details. I'm a big fan of big sold things, and the impression that I'm under is that the dimensions I've listed are slightly over engineered (please correct me if I'm wrong!) but I'd prefer to err on the side of more sturdyness rather than trying to save a couple of hundred bucks on the construction.
Hopefully this makes some sense, and sorry for the long post. I'll try and grab a couple of photos of the desribed area if that would help clear up what I'm trying to do here.
Thanks in advance for any help :)
Cheers,
Neil.
To keep things interesting, the area that I want to deck in isn't square but is a sort of half octagon shape (of sorts) and there is an existing small balcony/staircase leading down into the area that I'm hoping not to tear down and replace. Oh, there's also a rather large tree in the middle of the decked area that I want to deck around :)
I've been doing a bit of reading around this site and others about timber sizes, however without being particularly experienced in this area I wanted to get some feedback on design and timber types/sizes before I confuse myself too much. I've drawn up some basic plans and have an approach:
http://vsmr.net/files/deck.jpg
The grey area in the design is the wall of the house. The brown/yellow section is a small balcony with handrail that has an angled staircase descending into the garden are (and inconveniently into the space I wish to deck :p ). And, of course, the green circle is the location of the tree, adjusted slightly for where it sits in relation to the expected top of the deck height.
Appologies for the lack of scale (this didn't make it out of visio), but for the most part the stumps are in a grid separated by 1.2 meters in each direction (so 1.2m bearer span and 1.2m joist span, the joists at 450mm intervals). I'm also planning on attaching a bearer to the posts that hold up the balcony area and staircase. I decided not to use the side of the house to attach bearers directly to because at the level I want to deck at they're just slats, as the house itself is up on stumps.
The decking will run top to bottom fairly simply, except for the bits around the tree (which should still be fairly straight forward) and the bit that intrudes into the stairwell. I'm planning here to actually use the 2nd lower step on the stair to attach the end of the joists to and to make up a funky triangular bit of decking in a frame of sorts to fit into this area (I can feel pain here already), in order to avoid pulling the stair out and rebuilding it, although I'm getting the feeling that the latter option might end up being easier in the long run.
In terms of material I'm currently thinking:
Stumps - concrete 100x100 (the type with the steel rod jutting out the top) cemented on top of packed dry concrete
Bearers - treated pine, 100x75 [width by height] (or perhaps 100x100?)
Joists - treated pine, 50x100 [at 450mm intervals]
Decking - 100x50, undecided on type of wood yet
As you can probably tell I'm something of a woodworking noob and haven't tackled anything more than bench building, so I'm not clear on the appropriate grade of treated pine to use and other such details. I'm a big fan of big sold things, and the impression that I'm under is that the dimensions I've listed are slightly over engineered (please correct me if I'm wrong!) but I'd prefer to err on the side of more sturdyness rather than trying to save a couple of hundred bucks on the construction.
Hopefully this makes some sense, and sorry for the long post. I'll try and grab a couple of photos of the desribed area if that would help clear up what I'm trying to do here.
Thanks in advance for any help :)
Cheers,
Neil.