Thread: Planning steps for building a deck and awning

Wow thanks Ray. A picture tells a thousand words.

It has just rained so I am hoping it will stop before the weekend or otherwise I will have to wait.

Your welcome.
Need rain here, send some to the farmers

Still going even though it is slow. I don't get a lot of time on weekends to have a go. I thought I would attach a photo to show the current progress. I am confident it will hold. Just need to block some of the bearers and then I can do the joists. I have also been looking at making stringers for some stairs. Does anyone have any information on the standards for stringers?I was thinking of making them out of treated pine since I can cover them with the decking material.20190916_065508.jpg20190916_065455.jpg

Give me the height from finished decking level to finished ground/path where the steps are going and I will detail it for you.
Cladding stringers with decking will be problematic owing to trapped moister between the 2 timbers and differential in seasonal movement between the 2 timbers.
Unless you really want to make your own have a look at these Hardwood Stair Sets available from Bunnings Warehouse

Looking good Maddog.

I rebuilt the deck on our house and made the stairs and stringers using green sawn spotted gum from the light local saw mill. The treads are morticed into the stringers.



I drew them in cad and printed a template to trace the angles ect onto the stringers. Also remember to put any bow in the treads facing up. If you are interested in something similar I would still have the plans for them saved.

Cheers

Thanks guys this is the picture I had when I was designing my deck. I wasn't planning on putting decking on the stringers but as the actual steps but from what I have seen 19mm decking is too thin for steps.

I haven't measures the height and I need to make a concrete pad for the stringer to rest on so I will probably lose a bit of height due to that.
Steps.PNG

From what I have seen in what you linked Ray they sell 240mm x 42mm is an acceptable width.

I want the steps to be spotted gum to sort of match the posts and decking.
I will make my own steps most likely from 240 mm x 45 mm spotted gum with 1.1m for each stringer so a 2.4m piece will be fine.
3 steps at 1m each means 3m in total I don't know if 45mm seems a bit thick for a step so I will look at 35mm.
I will rearrange to allow the going to go from 276mm to 240mm and the riser remains at 175mm in total.

If any of this sounds wrong please feel free to correct me.

35 thick Hwd is ok but I do recommend you use 45mm. I just did a set for a client and used 2 pieces per tread each 140 x 45 with 5mm gap between each piece and only screwed into the front end of first piece and rear end of back piece, this eliminates the likelihood of the pieces splitting under seasonal/moister content variations. The treads are housed into the stringer 10mm and fixed with 100mm gal batten screws.
240 is the minimum width requirement.

Thanks. I was planning on not housing the treads but attaching them to the top of the stringer that way I can probably use treated pine for the stringer as it won't be entirely visible and go with the rest of the deck.

Is there a reason to house the treads as opposed to screwing on top?

Apart from being the traditional method, it minimizes any cupping of the tread and as mentioned before allows the tread to work with climatic/moister content changes.
When you say you would like to screw the treads on top I assume you are referring to "saw tooth" stringers. Using pine for this style will lead to heartache, the "tooth" will part company with the remainder of the stringer very quickly.
Another method is to use gal angle fixed to the side of the stringer and bolt the treads to that but allow for over sized holes in the angle to allow for seasonal movement in the treads

A housed stringer would also be much stronger than the saw tooth type i image.

So I have been busy over the weekend and managed to get all the joists down. I have 400mm centres and I was wondering what everyones view on blocking is for joists. I had to block some of the bearers at points as that is the recommendation for lengths greater than 1m.

If blocking is recommended do you tend to do the ends of more like a wall with the noggins where you stagger and put something like one block in one row and then two in the next?

What size joists and distance between bearers also what species of timber

The distance between the bearers is approx 1400mm and the joists are 90mm x 45mm. They are all treated pine mgp10.

Nog between the 1st and last pair of joists and then about every adjacent pair at approx 1.8m at the ends only