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Building a Basic Deck

© Chris Arnold

I don’t know about you, but I am just about sick of winter. I so ready for Spring that I’ve been longingly checking the weather in places like Florida and Hawaii just to day-dream a bit. In any case, this longing for Spring has caused me to start thinking about some projects for the warm weather.

One consideration that I have is for a new small deck out our backdoor. I am not going to try to tell you in one article how to build a deck. Instead I’m going to do a short series giving you most of the steps taken to build a solid deck. In this case I am going to be doing a free-standing deck that will not be attached to the house. One key reason for this is that a deck that is attached to the house requires compliance to a whole bunch of building codes and guidelines. You also get into a bunch of extra work that you don’t really need.

The first thing of course is to decide how big of a deck you really need. This means you have to try to figure out how you are going to use it. Are you going to be entertaining? Will you need storage on the deck? Is it just a platform to get out your backdoor?

The later is more of my situation. We already have a nice deck out the front of our house, so I’m really looking for a glorified set of steps. But I also realize that things change, so I am going to over build it a bit.

I’m thinking probably a 6X8 or something like that is going to work just fine. One other thing to remember is that you probably have a somewhat set budget. If you go a bit smaller you may be able to afford better materials such as redwood or pressure-treated pine.

At this point you can begin to figure what you are going to need. You are going to need concrete mix, the material for at least four 4X4 posts, your joist and beam wood, your decking wood, nails or screws, material for you steps if you are going to have it high enough for that, and railing materials if you are going to do that too.

I would recommend that you have the post dug down so that there is about 2 to 3 feet underground. This will usually mean about two bags of concrete per post. The number or length of your 4X4’s depends on how high your deck is going to be. You may only need two 8 footers, or you may need four 8 footers. It all depends on your deck.

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