TOP TEN Deck Building Tips I Wish I Knew Sooner!

here's my top 10 tips on how to build a deck or remodel

[Music] one I've built and remodeled numerous deck projects in the past and personally the framing portion of any construction

project is actually one of my favorite Parts whether it's a deck barely off the ground a 50ft long Behemoth like this one attached to a pool side or copious

demo and remodels I've done quite a few the problem is however when doing tutorial based content is no two deck projects are the same which is why I'm going to give you my top 10 framing tips

that I wish I knew about sooner which will also help any deck remodeling project or any new construction build out there for this particular project though we are mainly going to focus in

on this remodeling project even though these helpful tips will come in very handy with new construction as well I might enjoy the framing process but the funnest part of any deck remodeling

project is the demo portion because it is always satisfying to destroy something that has seen a lot of wear and tear over the years and that is no exception with this old railing as well

as the decking boards below my all-time favorite tool to have on hand with the demo portion is a reciprocating saw because it makes quick work of many different types of construction debris

as well as there's multiple different blades to choose from and to get through wood and metal at the same time so with any deck project you're going to have

waste especially if with a remodel so what are you going to do with that waste to make sure it's as easy as possible to get it out of your sight with as little labor as possible

well let me show you getting yourself a container is one of my very top tips on how to do a remodel or Home Improvement project and

this is something that I really do wish I did sooner because early on in my career I just took multiple loads of the dump over and over and over again and

that not only wasted time but I could have also been using that time to help build and remodel the deck itself I originally thought hey this is going to

save me money because I'm only going to be spending 20 or so dollars every dumpl load versus 3 to 600 to rent a dumpster well think about how much your time is

actually worth if it's really just about the end all Beall dollar amount then yes multiple trips to the dump is going to be cheaper but it's so much more efficient to be able to throw all of

your construction debris into a small container that's right in front of the house versus who knows how far your local landfill is plus whether this project is for yourself or the general

homeowner there always seems to be a number of items that have been laying around the house just too too long and no one's taken the time to take them to the dump and therefore having a nice large dumpster in the very front of your

house is a perfect way to get rid of them in a very quick and orderly Fashion on this deck remodeling project the deck boards were a goner but the joist were actually still in quite good condition

so we are going to salvage those joist unfortunately all the screws were withered too significantly so we had to take the reciprocating salt to every single one but with the vast majority of

the demo taken care of we can move on to my second tip the laser level I'm a man with a lot of tools and there are very few tools out there where I've actually regretted not purchasing sooner the

laser level is one of those tools I've used this all the time whether it's a deck project a shed patio or even mundane things like hanging up a few picture frames around the house it comes

in extremely handy so if there's one tool that I suggest having on hand that is like a larger purchase where you don't think you need it well guess what

deathly saved my bacon numerous times get yourself one if you're doing a deck project this certainly is not a video where I want you to feel like I'm trying to sell you numerous tools and materials

that you need for your project but I use this thing all the time and I truly do wish I purchased it sooner the reason why it's so impactful is that you're easily able to pinpoint exactly the

height needed for post adjustments on this particular project I had to transfer the height of certain post to lower post on the opposite side of the deck being able to transfer that height

to all the other post and taking much of the guesswork out is extremely straightforward and timesaving the laser level helped me on this remodeling project however it's

extremely helpful on new construction because it always comes down to lining up the ledger board perfectly with our concrete footings if it's a low profile deck on this particular project I had to

transfer our laser level Dimension to the very top of our concrete footings and once I had that I could place our beam and our joist and check to see if we're level we were and that's why we

had a perfect run all the way across that encompassed two French doors and two windows which needed to be pinpoint accurate and as you can see it worked out thanks to the laser level getting

back to the project at hand you may need to utilize old Lumber with new Lumber and unfortunately not all Lumber comes the same thickness be mindful of materials that

are supposed to be the same height but are very different these both are supposed to be 4X sixes and this one that was already here is approximately a

little under 5 and 1/2 in this one is over 5 1/2 in which means we're off approximately 38 which is definitely a big difference this one's going to be an

easy fix the joist however are not so I'll show you how it's done this beam correction was actually quite a straightforward problem to solve

because by striking a line on the bottom side and noting exactly where that bracket is I then transfer that line all the way around that section and use an

electric hand planer to plane down this section perfectly to the same thickness as the beam adjacent to it as I move this beam over to check that we have

proper thickness cut it leads me into tip number three making sure you always always have some extra pressure treated Solution on hand pressure treated solution is quite important especially

for pressure treated lumber and as you can see when we're cutting this material sometimes this doesn't soak all the way through and therefore having a solution

to apply to it first will still preserve this wood as best as possible before it's here for decades hopefully I am aware that our pressure

traded material here in the Pacific Northwest does look different different than those on the East Coast because of different types of climate but there still is added pressure treated solution that you can apply to any Lumber out

there in the exterior elements I generally recommend applying this product with a stiff bristle brush like a chip brush because you can obviously easily throw this type of

brush away and not have to worry about trying to wash it off later on and this particular product should be applied to any pressure treated lumber in which you placed a cut in a especially on

horizontal surfaces because those areas are obviously more prone to water damage because water can actually rest and absorb into the wood more easily I apply

the solution on beams joist ends and even post bases because I want to guarantee that we have as much protection as possible for this Lumber and speaking of protection let's get to

flashing tape flashing tape now this is something that is extremely important because the fact that we use composite decking quite often and back in the day the decking itself was always going to

degrade earlier than the joist or the beams or the post nowadays these are going to be degrading even faster than our decking so we need to make sure and do our due diligence to make sure that

these last as long as possible flashing tape is a perfect opportunity to do so and they come in multiple sizes for your joist or your

beam composite decking is so widely used these days that flashing tape has become a huge industry and it really is an extremely nominal cost when you consider

the overall cost of a deck plus it's not very timec consuming to add between the flashing tape that I applied to the beams as well as the joys it probably only took me an hour to do the overall

thought process here is just to make sure that your structural Lumber lasts as long as humanly possible because no matter what the composite decking material is going to last longer than a

pressure trated Joy beam this is always a very satisfying step because it is very easy and straightforward plus it means that you're close to the end of the project

but we're not quite here yet let's get back to actually installing our joist just as I noted with the beam height discrepancy we also have joist height

discrepancy as well and that could really screw up the layout of our decking once our deck in is installed before you install any joists you should line them all up and figure out which

ones are your tall Joys and which ones are your short Joys and mark them accordingly unfortunately these days we don't have our joist all the same

thickness I've seen these joist go from 6 and 1/4 in to 6 and 5/8 and that will really screw with your measurements if you're not prepared for it so make sure

you have all your Joys line up first and figure out which ones are small versus tall and if there's just one or two of the tall ones get them out of there or PL them down

once I go through all of my new Lumber and know which ones are the high ones and which ones are the low ones I can start laying out all of my framing and for framing I always suggest doing a

picture frame border no matter what type of deck project it is this is a very simple and straightforward framing solution to make your project go from a

DIY project to an extremely professional looking deck layout the key element here is proper spacing our deck boards are 5 1/2 in wide and therefore the center of

our doubled up joist should be approximately 5 1/2 Ines away from the edge however we are also applying fascia to the side of our Rim joist which means

our fascia is a half in thick and therefore I'm subtracting 3/4 of an inch of that 5 and 1/2 in so I'm actually only leaving 4 and 3/4 in from the edge

of Our Deck to the center of our doubled up joist if that makes sense in order to install my picture frame joist on the other side of the deck I did have to remove our stairs and as you

can see just as a side note don't have Lumber in contact with the ground it will degrade quickly once I bring over install the remaining deckboards for our piture

frame installation I can move on to the rest of our joist and this is where tip number seven comes to play joist spacing in the past you would normally see 16 in

on Center but now because we're using composite decking you may want to go to 12 in on Center because the lot of the composite decking is getting softer and

softer to avoid heat buildup yes if you remember any of the old composite decking it was extremely hot anytime there was Sun out and the boards themselves were very heavy and dense and

that's why you didn't have to really worry about the boards bending over time because they were so stiff but nowadays they are avoiding the heat buildup and making it lighter which also makes the

product softer and that means you may want to consider 12 in on Center versus 16 on this particular project I am still sticking with 16 because that's what is

existing on this deck but I will give you a few helpful tips and tricks when installing composite decking in my next video so please stay tuned for that and make sure you're subscribed after I installed all my joy hurricane ties I

went back around and added a bit more blocking into the areas that I know I'm going to have a railing post located at but once I have all my blocking accounted for at this point I can move

on to making sure every single one of these joists is at the proper elevation at some point of any deck project I take on even if it's brand new

wood it seems like I need to plane down one or two boards that's where the electric planer comes into play because this guy saves me a lot of time and energy to try and get this thing

perfectly flat as possible and to plane down one board or two the electric planer really does a quick masterful job at it just be careful I've already showed off the

electric planer in a previous tip and this really coincides with checking your material thickness so it really doesn't deserve its own Pro tip but the one that does deserve another tip is blocking

adding Center support blocking to any deck really does provide a benefit to the deck itself I've seen plenty of deck projects that do not use blocking including the one that I even built for

my home years and years ago but in all honesty it is a quick and easy ad that you can do to a deck that will help support the deck's longevity and

stiffness as well as it making it even safer to walk on especially if you have a tall deck off the ground safety is key and having a stiffer deck framing to walk across is always beneficial in my

book Plus in some areas throughout the nation they do have tendency to have joist that actually warp and twist over time and this will definitely prevent that from happening at least much less

likely to happen you may have to purchase a couple extra boards for this type of blocking but if you do it right you actually might also be able to use all the extra framing waste that has

been accumulated over the framing process after I snap a string line across the center of our joist framing I then stagger our bracing which actually

makes it a lot easier to nail off properly with all of our framing taken care of we can move on to our flashing tape for our joist and our blocking this

is part of tip number four which was adding flashing tape when I was adding it to the beam but just remember that this tape does come in multiple sizes and because our joist are only an inch

and a half wide this tape is 2 in wide which fits over our joist perfectly and drapes over both sides of them with all of our flashing tape attached to our

joist we can get to flashing specifically metal flashing that is flashing is one of the most important elements to any deck project whether

it's a new build or a remodel we want to guarantee that we have proper protection of our house and we're not jeopardizing the longevity of our house with a deck

even though how beautiful it is so unfortunately on this project you can see where the ledge board was attached directly to our sighting and that's a no no we want to make sure there were some

type of barrier between luckily for the homeowner on this project there are eaves above us and that means the water is actually going away away from the house already and therefore there's very

little water damage here in order to avoid any further damage we're going to put flashing here and actually go up underneath our sighting that way if there's any moisture that does hit our

deck and hit this flashing it's going to be propelled away from our house not towards our house simple enough since we are dealing with existing trim and sighting I did have to

get a little bit creative with this flashing so I took some general measurements Trace those out onto our trim then cut those pieces out with a diamond disc attached to my grinder once

each section is cut I then bend it back and forth to easily remove those pieces that need to be removed and then slide it into position I'll use some high quality silicone at the very bottom

wherever the trim meets our metal as well as where our flashing meets our flashing but keep in mind not all decks are able to utilize metal flashing like

this sometimes you have to use deck spacers these are called deck toall spacers and they're specifically designed for this type of application where you're attaching them to the back

side of your ledger board and then the ledger board is still being attached to your dwelling this was a project that I recently did where I was attaching stairs directly to the house but I didn't have anywhere to put a metal

flashing trim piece which is why the deck spacers are perfect because it allows air to flow as well as moisture to run down evenly and quick quickly so there's no issue with moisture building

up over time we also installed this on this massive backyard renovation build that we did in Florida where we knew this ledger board was going to be going up against a concrete foundation but

there still needs to be a way for moisture to evaporate more evenly which is why the deck spacers are perfect in this application and since we're on the topic of new decks like this one I'm

going to stay on the new Deck theme for my last and final tip however I am going to give a bonus tip for any and everyone that has actually stuck through this

entire video till now and number 10 is going to be knowing the 345 method as well as the cross-dimensional measurement and how important that is

when it comes to having a perfectly Square deck now one of the key aspects of a deck is making sure it's Square Off the house so we're using the 345 method

but we're actually going to be making it and timesing it by three because it's such a large deck so if you take three *

3 from here to here is 9 ft 3 * 4 12 so take that measurement from here over

to here is 12T off of that Mark and of course 3 * 5 is 15 so if I take my tape

measure try to do it by hand and run it all the way across you want to make sure that that line is very

close to 15 if it is that means you have a perfectly Square deck off of the house which is exactly what we want at this point let me know if you need any more

clarity on that specific rule but if you want something a little bit less complicated and more straightforward it would be the cross-dimensional measurement if you're able to do it this method doesn't work for all decks

because not all decks are squares or rectangles but in those circumstances you can definitely use this method so the most important thing about this deck is the fact that you need to make sure

it's square and the reason why we did this tape is because if you stretch it all the way from this corner right here

all the way over there that means that we have that measurement which is 31 ft 11 in now I already took the tape

from that corner over to here I'll do it again but that is also 31 ft 11 in which means our deck is perfectly square and

when installing a composite decking for a picture frame deck that means that it's going to be a lot easier to accomplish those perfect 45° mitered Corners like this and with that said we

can move on to our last and final tip our bonus tip if you're able to rent a walk behind or Ride Along skid loader this has saved me so much time and

energy and my personal physical well-being to rent these just for a day or two which makes the process exponentially easier and I put this as a bonus tip because in all honesty I know

not everyone is going to be able to rent one of these in their general area but if you're able to I would highly suggest doing it because not only can It move a large amount of Earth extremely quickly

and easily but it also can drill your concrete footings very quickly with a 12in diameter augur bit the sheer amount

of Labor that this saves is worth every single penny that you spend for a day or two renting it and it can be delivered to a job site or a home in most circumstances and that is my last and

final tip on how to build a deck but in my next video stay tuned because we're going to do my top tips on how to install composite decking a little trickier than

most can't wait to show off this beautiful sexy beast in all its Glory oh yeah