Thread: Jayson's Deck - Up She Goes (Slowly)

So, the deck construction enters it's final week, and the weather has turned against me. It has been peeing down here for the last two days, especially today, so not much work was completed. I ordered the colorbond today, and took a trip into Bunnings for supplies to put the roof up, and get the hand-rail underway. After many different changes, we have decided on a colour for the roof, hand-rail, baluster and house. Hopefully it will all tie in together well.

Tomorrow I am starting on the roof trusses, and the hand-rail. I am planning to move all my gear into the car-port, and begin work in there. It will be a huge PITA, but the only thing I can do to keep the work going. As it stops raining, I will nip up onto the deck and nail down the last few boards, as well as clean up the edges of the decking and joists.

I am also hoping to put the first coat of paint on the balusters and hand-rail, so that I can start cutting them out, ready to be put up when the rain stops.

As long as the roof trusses are ready for Friday, and the weather is good for putting up roofs, I will be happy.

The picture attached is from ground level, obviously. All the decking is complete, and we have just hauled into place the beams for the roof. No easy task, let me assure you! They look great though!

Can't wait for the roof to go on!

I will take some pics from deck level soon, because it looks twice as good from the second story!

Cheers

Jayson.

OK, so I have finished the trusses for the roof. If I never have to cut out another birds-beak in my life, it will be too soon!!

A couple of them look a bit dodgy, as I couldn't get the angle of the cross-beam right, but most of them are OK to go. I am hoping that it comes together OK tomorrow. The beams aren't perfectly parallel anyway, so we can use the slightly wider trusses at the fat end, and work our way out from there.

Back to work on Monday, so I hope I can get the roof on, and perhaps even some of the hand-rail done over the weekend.

The weather report looks excellent for putting on colorbond tomorrow, so it should be all go. Then I will take some more pics, and it will actually look like I have been doing something.

In these pics you can see that the decking is almost finished, just some tidying up to do, and the other is a closer look at the laminated beams up and ready for the trusses to go on tomorrow.

Cheers

Jayson.

Well, it bucketed down most of the morning, so no roof over the deck as yet. Instead I spent the day cutting rafters for the two side-bits or "wings" as we are calling them, and then routing the baluster rebate into the handrail. I hope the effort is worth it because it took a fair bit of effort to rebate a 42mm trench into the hand-rail.

There seems to be a world shortage of large, good quality router bits at the moment, because the biggest I could find was 16mm, which meant three passes to get the 42mm trench. All is done now though.

I am hoping for fine weather tomorrow, so I can either get the roof done, ot else get up on the deck and finish off the last of the decking. If it buckets down again I will begin painting the top and bottom rail, as well as the balusters, ready to be cut and put together.

No pics, as nothing has changed from last time.

Cheers

Jayson.

Sorry about the lack of updates, but we have been having inter-web problems, and I had to go back to work this week.

Anyways, I managed to get all the roof trusses done, and Reg reckoned they were spot on, which is a relief, because I was losing sleep over them. No matter what I did, I couldn't cut the middle bit exactly right, and adding to the problem was little twists and bows in the pine.

I have posted a pic of the roof trusses going up. It took us about an hour or so to get the first one up, then the others went up pretty quickly after that. The complicating factor is that we need to lift them up and over the power line coming into the house. The first was the hardest, but the line get's lower as it moves away from the house, so it gets easier as we go.

We also got the two 'wings' on the left and right ready to go. I am hoping to get the rafters up on both sides Sunday morning, yep, even though it is mothers day! SWMBO has decreed that the deck takes precedence over most things, so we are celebrating Mothers Day on Saturday, giving me Sunday to work on the deck. Hopefully I can get the rafters and batons on and nailed down, I say hopefully because I appear to have cracked two ribs at Hockey last week. It will be confirmed tomorrow, but it is F#$%ing painful right now, let me tell you! Still, puting rafters up is pretty light work, it should be fine. If I can't acheive that, I can paint the hand-rail and balusters, that's for sure.

You can see in the photo that the pitch of the roof matches the pitch on the car-port. 25.5 degrees, to be exact! The plan is to remove the colorbond (along with the *lovely* dolphin) and replace it with Hardi-plank type stuff. Then I will do the same in the gable over the deck, and it will (hopefully) look like it matches. We are planning to paint it a blue colour.

Updates will be a bit slower from now on in, as it will only be weekends I get to do any work. I am determined to keep posting though, even if it takes me the rest of the year to finish the damn thing!

Cheers

Jayson

Lookin good...
Does your initial quote seem fair ....now that your into the project and seeing the work involved ....

Did you mean "Birds Mouth" ? As in where the the rafter meets your wall plates or verandah beam...

Keep up the great work and photo's

cheers Utemad

www.dialadeck.com.au

Lookin good...
Does your initial quote seem fair ....now that your into the project and seeing the work involved ....

The original quote was more than fair, let me tell you. It still feels good to be saving money as you work, too!

Did you mean "Birds Mouth" ? As in where the the rafter meets your wall plates or verandah beam...

Yep, that's the ones, if I never see another one of those it will be too soon!

Keep up the great work and photo's

cheers Utemad

www.dialadeck.com.au

Cheers. Hopefully I will get some more done on Sunday, weather and health permitting!

The weather broke long enough yesterday to get some work done, and I snapped a couple of pics this morning.

The two side wings of the deck now have a roof over them, and it is starting to look great! I was surprised at how long it took to prepare for the tin to go up, but once everything was square and ready, it went up pretty quick.

I have been busy painting the hand-rail and balistrading, ready to be cut and put up once the roof is on.

The pace has slowed considerably, but I have been trying to do at least a little bit each night.

I have attached a pic of the front of the house, and on from the inside of the deck.

Enjoy!

Hey Jason;

Hats off to you on your effort, it looks sensational! I was interested to know why you went with Jarrah instead of the other wood varieties. Pardon my ignorance, but i don't know much about wood or woodwork, but i do understand that Jarrah is a much more expensive hardwood option than say Merbau or Batu, and lots more than pine.
I'm planning a deck (4mx6m plus a few stairs) and plan to live in the place for atleast the next 10-15 years so i'm all for doing it right, making it look good and making it last.

Was it a colour thing, lquality?

Originally Posted by DayDreamer

Hey Jason;

Hats off to you on your effort, it looks sensational! I was interested to know why you went with Jarrah instead of the other wood varieties. Pardon my ignorance, but i don't know much about wood or woodwork, but i do understand that Jarrah is a much more expensive hardwood option than say Merbau or Batu, and lots more than pine.
I'm planning a deck (4mx6m plus a few stairs) and plan to live in the place for atleast the next 10-15 years so i'm all for doing it right, making it look good and making it last.

Was it a colour thing, lquality?

Thanks for the compliment, DayDreamer.

The reason for Jarrah was a number of things, I live in the SW of WA, so it is a bit of a traditional choice. I really like the colour and feel of Jarrah, and it lasts forever. There is a timbermill about a kilometre away, and they happen to make a bit of decking from time to time, and they delivered for free to me, so the price was right. I ended up paying $4 a metre, which was a little more expensive than Batu or Merbau, but not by much, and we live 35 k's from town, so delivery needs to be added on too. In the end, we both thought that Jarrah was the best choice, given that it was a pretty big area, so it had to look top notch.

I imagine that Jarrah is pretty steap over your way, as it is not a natural timber for your region.

If you are looking for longevity, then using the right materials is a must, so don't skimp on the nails, bolts and finish, as these can fail before the wood does.

Cheers and good luck!

Jayson

Nice work Jayson. Jarrah is top notch stuff, so I don't blame you for spending a little extra, even if your price was extraordinarily cheap!

Quick question - what sort of balustrade did you decide on?

Keep the photos coming - I love it!

Lotte

Originally Posted by LotteBum

Nice work Jayson. Jarrah is top notch stuff, so I don't blame you for spending a little extra, even if your price was extraordinarily cheap!

Quick question - what sort of balustrade did you decide on?

Keep the photos coming - I love it!

Lotte

Cheers mate.. it is going to look even better this weekend, after the roof goes on...


As to the balustrade, I am using 90 by 35mmm structural pine as a top and bottom rail, with 42mm square LOSP pine as balusters. I have rebated roughly 10mm into the top rail, and am planning to cut way around 5 mm to form a ledge in the bottom rail.

The balusters will be 120mm apart, and I need to use some supports along the span.

Cheers

Jayson

That sounds really nice.

ANOTHER question: What sort of roofing are you using? We have opted with some gear called Paneltech - it's corrugated iron on top (we're getting Zincalume, but you can get various Colorbond shades), foam filled and flat on the bottom. Simply put, it's insulated and self spanning, so we don't require much in the way of support, which is great. Only downside is that it's expensive - at about $100/m² (inclusive of flashing etc) - I nearly died when I discovered this - AFTER getting our plans together!

Lotte (no, I don't play football )

Originally Posted by LotteBum

That sounds really nice.

ANOTHER question: What sort of roofing are you using? We have opted with some gear called Paneltech - it's corrugated iron on top (we're getting Zincalume, but you can get various Colorbond shades), foam filled and flat on the bottom. Simply put, it's insulated and self spanning, so we don't require much in the way of support, which is great. Only downside is that it's expensive - at about $100/m² (inclusive of flashing etc) - I nearly died when I discovered this - AFTER getting our plans together!

Lotte (no, I don't play football )

Just normal corrugated colorbond, it is in a colour called 'surf mist'.

Oddly, it was the roof that had me the most worried, and it has been the easiest to do. I got a couple of quotes from pergola places to put up a steel framed jobbie over the deck, and the average price was $10k. reckon it has cost me about $2500 for the roof, using pine trusses and colorbond. I could have cut a few $$$ out of that by not using such big laminated beams, but I wanted to deck to look solid up top as well, to match the big push poles. The tin cost $1100, delivered.

Since my deck is open to the West, it will cop the full weather in winter, so I didn't really see the point in insulating it, as we won't be out there anyway!

You can always change your plans, you know? Councils can be flexible about this stuff, as long as it is still structurally sound.

Originally Posted by Spelunx

Just normal corrugated colorbond, it is in a colour called 'surf mist'.

My personal favourite.

Oddly, it was the roof that had me the most worried, and it has been the easiest to do. I got a couple of quotes from pergola places to put up a steel framed jobbie over the deck, and the average price was $10k. reckon it has cost me about $2500 for the roof, using pine trusses and colorbond. I could have cut a few $$$ out of that by not using such big laminated beams, but I wanted to deck to look solid up top as well, to match the big push poles. The tin cost $1100, delivered.

That's not bad at all.

Since my deck is open to the West, it will cop the full weather in winter, so I didn't really see the point in insulating it, as we won't be out there anyway!

Fair enough. We're only really insulating ours for the sake of our pooches.

You can always change your plans, you know? Councils can be flexible about this stuff, as long as it is still structurally sound.

Yeah, the certifier did say it was do-able, but we'd have to lower the deck and that is simply not an option unfortunately. Ah well, it's without doubt more expensive than plain Zincalume, but I guess the supports would start to add up, so I'm not beating myself up about it too hard.

When will your deck be finished? You've been at it for a while...

We're *hoping* to have ours up in the next two (3 day) weekends. It's only low, and the footings are in so it shouldn't be too bad, but I'm sure a lot of people on here will have something to say about my projected timeframe!

Lotte