Our deck spans half of the back of the house, and the other half has a cracking concrete slab patio and about a four-foot section of paving tiles I put down for the wood stack, a square of bricks, and a rotted ‘bridge’ to the deck. The patio cover only extends about six feet from the French doors, and half of the area is taken up by a ‘bar’ someone had built. The actual deck is unusable because of an old hot tub and a camper shell on it. It’s finally time to do something about this situation.
Our handyman (Daniel) and his crew are coming to do some demolition. Daniel will take the camper shell for his own use, the deck and concrete will be demolished and hauled off with the hot tub. The new deck is going to be pressure-treated cedar 36 feet wide and 21 (or 24 feet) deep. The bedrooms extend about four feet farther than the living room so subtract that from the area. We’re going to have a roof over the living-room half that extends to the edge of the deck. The back will overlap the house’s roof and be about two feet above it. It will slope down to the outside. I wouldn’t mind a truss roof, but the single-slope, overlapping one is cheaper and not unprecedented in this neighbourhood. Daniel says the rain will run off the roof and into the existing gutter (that is under the existing cover) so we won’t get wet coming outside. Anyway, that will give us a whole lot of outside ‘living area’ when it rains or snows, plus a large area for getting some sun.
Daniel says demolition will take three days, and the whole thing will be done in two weeks. He estimated it will cost $7,000 for the job. Mrs. L.A. says she can pay $5,000 and she asked me to pay $2,000.
So you’ll finally be playing with a full deck?
flees
Stop ticking him off
Johnny, there was a bar in college called New Deck Tavern; when can we stop by for beers?
I don’t know. They’re an hour late already!
How exciting! I love my deck, had it put on like 6 years ago or so. Cost a lot but I use it all the time! I can only imagine how nice it is to get rid of a crummy old one and replace it with something beautiful and new.
Pics!
:eek:
I mis-read the title and wondered who you were going in halves with!
One of these days I need to upgrade the electrical system. First, I need to get a square electrical box to replace the round mount with a meter on it. At the same time, I’ll get a breaker board to replace the fuse box. And I want more circuits.
Daniel started breaking up the concrete (which seems to be remarkably strong, considering the cracks) with an electric jackhammer. I plugged it into the power strip that powers the TV, cable box, modem, wireless router, and a couple of things that never get turned on. It tripped the breaker on the power strip. I was going to plug his extension lead into the kitchen, but I thought ‘Wait. There’s a 3,000 W generator under the “bar” on the patio.’ That seems to be working out for them.
.
Concrete can be deceptively strong sometimes. I remember when my parents replaced a concrete slab in our backyard when I was a kid. It turned out that the prior owner had done it DIY and reinforced it with old baker’s cooling racks that were about 2’x3’. They also poured it thicker than needed. The end result was that you couldn’t break it up into pieces than weighed less than about 120 lbs each; all the cracking we saw had happened along seams between the baker’s racks.
It was definitely a DIY pour. (It was done in 1969, BTW.) Looks like six inches of concrete over six inches of river rocks.
The guys (Daniel’s dad and one other guy) are about two-thirds of the way done. Damn my eyes, I only just remembered I had a box of ear plugs. :smack: At least they’re using them for the rest of the job. Daniel has gone off to get tacos. (I declined, but I did just make myself a burrito.)
It seems I exaggerated on the thickness of the river rocks. It looks like just one layer. But the concrete is six inches thick.
I just put a sign up in the back door:
STOP!
NO STEP
I hope neither of us forgets when we’re groggy or ignores the sign. Otherwise it could be painful.
Progress report
Daniel saved the old frame since it was still good, and build the rest of the frame around it. The framing for the roof (over the east half) is up too. Daniel’s ‘framing expert’ got the frame wrong, so they spent half of yesterday fixing it. Some decking planks are in place.
Mrs. L.A. looked at the completed frame and was shocked. Even though I stood in the yard more than once, saying ‘This is where this corner will be’, she hadn’t grokked the size. ‘Oh, my god! It’s another house!’ Yeah, 800 square feet is pretty sizeable. ‘I have to buy new furniture!’ ‘We can have guests and let them camp out on the deck!’
I have a new hammock, but I still need to get a frame for it. I’ve just ordered a gas grill. I’ve never used a gas grill, having used charcoal all of my life. But with a brand-new, huge deck, we’ll be cooking out more and gas is more convenient. Mrs. L.A. took me for grilled oysters like we had in New Orleans (and which I’ve cooked here over the coals) for my birthday, and a gas grill will put those on the menu more often.
It’s pretty much done. The planks are down, but many of them only have one screw per end. Daniel will come to finish it later. For now, it’s perfectly usable. The roof overlaps the house’s roof and it two feet above it, and I said in the OP. There are six pressure-treated 4x4 posts holding it up. The uprights are secured into metal brackets set into concrete piers that are concreted into the ground. The three crossbeams are 4x6s, and the joists (rafters?) are 2x6s. It has woodchip panels covered with tarpaper (felt?) and high-quality shingles. It has flashing as well. There are 4x4s about a foot long at the top of each upright to give it lateral rigidity. There’s really no way to do that longitudinally, so there are 2x4s ‘laminated’ (screwed into) the 4x4 uprights and the 4x6 crossbeams.
I’m just a wee bit paranoid. My motto is ‘If it’s worth doing, it’s worth over-doing!’ We don’t usually get much snow here, but every so often we’ll get a couple of feet. So here’s what I’m going to do: I’ve bought some pressure-treated 2x4s and 4x4s. I’ll cut uprights out of the 2x4s, 34½ inches long. They will be screwed onto the butt-ends of 2x4s that fit between the uprights. I’ll cut the 4x4s so that they form a triangle within the 2x4 frame, such that the butt-ends are against the vertical boards. I’ll screw the vertical 2x4s into the uprights, and the bottom horizontal ones onto the decking. I want to make ‘pickets’ out of pressure-treated 2x2s, 34½ inches tall, spaced about six inches apart. They will be screwed to the top and bottom frame pieces, and into the diagonal piece. If I can find one (and I know they exist because they’re used for the rafters – only, the local place doesn’t have them) I’ll get a 22-foot long 2x6 for the cap rail. I can cut notches for the uprights so the whole thing is tied together. I don’t think the roof will be going anywhere.
The other side of the roof will be left open, supported by the diagonal and ‘laminated’ pieces at the top. I’m hoping that between my railings on the opposite side, the top reinforcements, the concrete piers, and the deck planks that surround them (only three sides on the end one), it will be strong enough to withstand anything this climate can throw at it.
Mrs. L.A. has put Thompson’s Water Seal on the uncovered more-than-half of the deck. I put some on the side where the railings are going to go. I got my chop-saw out of storage yesterday, and I have by Black & Decker Workmate. I bought a cordless drill, lumber, and screws today. I thought I’d start the railings today, but it’s Sunday and I want to veg. Besides, the lumber was a little damp. I’ll do it over the three-day weekend.
Are you supposed to seal so quickly? I seem to recall when i had my deck installed they said let the wood cure for a year before I stained and sealed.
Have you considered a retractable awning?
I’ve been thinking about it. Something that would at least shade half my deck. Gets so hot here that my deck isn’t usable except very early mornings
Mrs. L.A. is the one with water-seal experience. I defer to her. If it needs to ‘cure’, it can cure from the bottom. 
Half of the deck is 17 feet wide and 24 feet long. Twenty-four feet is a helluva long span from the house. Also, moss grows quickly up here so we’d have a green awning within a year. We have the roof pressure-washed avery two years. And based on the retractable door screens on the back bedrooms, I’m not fond of roll-ups.
The deck is pretty much done. There are still some boards to be screwed down and Mrs. L.A. needs to finish painting the water seal on. But she’s already moving stuff onto it.
Deck from the far corner. Mrs. L.A. insists on having the fire dish on the deck. After the photo was taken she put a square of nine pavers down, with bricks from the old chimney over the seams, and put the pit on top of it. I’d rather there be no wood fires on the deck, but she says I’m being a Boy Scout. The little chiminea is just for decoration.
I built the railings Sunday, and put the pickets on Monday.
Mrs L.A. ordered a shade for the inside half of the covered part of the deck, to A) block the glare from the white single-wide next door; and B) have some privacy from the occasional neighbour who was watching her on the patio a few years ago. I’ll probably hang a horizontal 2x4 (on edge) up at the top for her to hang the shade from.
I want a new deck
Made of wood or concrete
One that won’t get too wet in rain
Or make me burn my bare feet
I want a new deck
One that don’t look insane
One where I can have barbecues
With charcoal or propane
I want a new deck
A mallard, I think…
(Oh, wait. I misread the thread title… )
