Building deck - ideas, suggestions

[Trying2bFrugal]

Moved into the house in Dec 2022 and need to build a deck.

We are good with simple design and the patio door is 4 feet from ground level. The space is about 12x15. A friend suggested pavers, I thought of concrete and wife thought of floating deck at ground level (no side rails, just raised couple inches from ground level.

1. Where do I find city code about the outer structures?
2. When doing deck what tools do I need?
3. On deck materials, is synthetic ones better than treated wood? Not sure how much I am looking at.

 A friend is going to build a deck next month and I will be taking part or visiting to learn on them and I would also get one pair of hands when needed. Apart from watching few hours of youtube, I am really scratching head on this.

[nereo]

1) your town office and (probably) online
2) at a minimum, a shovel, circular saw, drill or hammer, level, string. You can build a pretty good deck with very minimal tools actually. 
3) personal preference mixed with what physical conditions your deck will experience, but my preference is pressure treated ONLY for the ground contact posts, spruce for the joists and then a rot-resistant natural wood like cedar for the decking.  I dislike synthetic in most cases because it most wont biodegrade, and I avoid pressure treated for non-ground contact because it’s toxic AF and it doesn’t actually give you any real benefit in most cases

Decks are a good project for learning DIY, but definitely have an experienced friend guide you

[uniwelder]

I hate the idea of a wooden deck/patio just above ground level.  The wood will be be constantly humid and rot faster.  Since its too low to go underneath, it makes a great home for groundhogs, skunks, cats, etc.

I would vote for either a poured concrete slab or pavers.  You would need a handrail for the steps down if it will be at grade level.  You could probably get around the handrail requirement if the patio is slightly raised (18" or so) from the ground.

Contact the local office for codes/inspections/permits and they might even have a 'deck building guide' to give you.  From what I remember, guardrails are needed if the drop is 30" or greater from the deck/patio and handrails are needed on stairs if there is 4 or more risers (3 steps plus landing). 

[lthenderson]

We are good with simple design and the patio door is 4 feet from ground level. The space is about 12x15. A friend suggested pavers, I thought of concrete and wife thought of floating deck at ground level (no side rails, just raised couple inches from ground level.

1. Where do I find city code about the outer structures?
2. When doing deck what tools do I need?
3. On deck materials, is synthetic ones better than treated wood? Not sure how much I am looking at.

I'm not a big fan of decks on grade or floating right above grade for the reasons mentioned already, humidity and rodent/mammals. I find what kind of deck is desired to largely be personal preference and they all have their pros and cons. Concrete and paver patios are fine but are huge heat sinks so can be oppressively hot during summer evenings when I tend to spend time outside. Concrete up next to a house can be tricky especially if there is a basement involved. Care must be used to make sure water isn't draining to your house and in cold climates, so many people make the mistake of making them floating which means even with them tapered in the right direction, time may change that. Pavers don't have that problem but have other problems like maintenance to keep weeds out and in cold climates, the base needs to be done really well or they can heave and become unlevel. Decks with natural wood are pretty but require maintenance to keep them that way but have the advantage of being fairly cheap to replace as time goes by. Synthetic decks can reduce maintenance a lot but can get really hot in the summer on bare feet and are more prone to mold issues.

I personally have gone the route of using natural wood for my deck. I have a simple one on the second story on the backside of my house. Because it is so easy to just replace the boards, I probably don't restain/reseal it nearly as often as I can to keep it looking beautiful. I've only resealed it twice in the ten years since I've lived here. For me, I don't care that the wood looks faded as long as it is structurally sound. The house is 50 years old and the deck wasn't close to new when we moved in so I honestly don't know how old it is. My guess is somewhere approaching 20 years at this point. It would probably cost me less than $500 to replace every single decking board so on a per annum basis, it has been very cheap.  It is an outdoor flooring surface and thus I treat it differently than I would my dining room floor. It cools off quickly after sunset in the summer and I can easily walk on it barefoot on all but the hottest of days. I have plans to redo it maybe in five years or so to turn it into a three season room versus a deck as the latter will appeal to me more than a deck at that point. The older I get, the more I like just being outside but without the direct sun and bugs that my deck provides me.

1. Here in the midwest, I just start by going to the county courthouse and asking. Usually the correct department I need for codes and permits is in one of it's many many rooms.
2. Tools greatly depend on what type of deck/surface you end up choosing, the material you choose and how complex you decide to make it. Once you decide, I would suggest starting off with some YouTube videos of others to get an idea of what you might need. Also, if you don't do this sort of thing regularly, consider finding a tool rental place for some of the bigger and more expensive tools.
3. See my pros and cons listed above. It is mostly personal preference as all can work.

[Trying2bFrugal]

1) your town office and (probably) online
2) at a minimum, a shovel, circular saw, drill or hammer, level, string. You can build a pretty good deck with very minimal tools actually. 
3) personal preference mixed with what physical conditions your deck will experience, but my preference is pressure treated ONLY for the ground contact posts, spruce for the joists and then a rot-resistant natural wood like cedar for the decking.  I dislike synthetic in most cases because it most wont biodegrade, and I avoid pressure treated for non-ground contact because it’s toxic AF and it doesn’t actually give you any real benefit in most cases

Decks are a good project for learning DIY, but definitely have an experienced friend guide you

Wife wants a 16x16 deck at near ground level with composite wood. She dont want wood. out of 8, 5 got concrete decks. one want to do composite (big one) and other seemed to lean on concrete. Anyway, right now wife got that side of choice. I will be taking part of a deck building by few friends (they are doing first time as well, but have a lot of other experiences).

In our previous house we wooden deck at ground level. The neighbor was catching rodent or any other small animal with a catching stuff (cage) and relocate them to near by parks. May be thats why we never saw anything otherthan bunnies livinig underneath the deck.

The contractors quote was almost insane for anything. (140 linear foot on vinyl fencing was quoted for $10500). Fencing isnt a necessary one right now, so i am not going to bother. But even the deck quotes were above 15k for neighbor. concrete one was done about 10 grand. I decided to do help the friend, learn and get some help and do ourself. Thats why i liked pavers, much simpler to build. But wife disapproved it immediately.

[CatamaranSailor]

I built a ground level deck off our patio two summers ago. It replaced a concrete patio that had been destroyed by massive tree roots. Ground level decks need drainage, airflow underneath and proper water proofing treatment of any cut ends. Built properly you should get and easy 25 + years, even using pressure treated. Butyl tape on the beams prior to laying down deck boards makes a huge difference. Depending on your materials, you may or may not need to sand and re-stain every year. Wooden decks get a bad rap mainly because they are maintenance intensive and...you guessed it...most people don't want to take the time.

Where I live, ground level decks do not need a permit unless they  are physically attached to the house.

This site has some good info. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aR8h_TgRss

If you have basic skills, you can tackle this type of project. No need to hire it out.

[sonofsven]

If you're going to put in a deck just below the slider then in most cases you'll need to attach a deck ledger to the house, screwed into the rim joist
Do not do not DO NOT screw the ledger over the siding!
This is crucial and is often done wrong by beginners, leading to rotten siding, sheathing, and framing.
The siding needs to be removed, the sheathing papered, deck ledger installed using ledger lock screws on a diagonal pattern, the ledger flashed, building paper install above the flashing and tucked under the paper above. You'd be amazed how many people don't lap the paper correctly. Think like a raindrop!

[ChpBstrd]

I recently installed both a deck and a paver patio at my house. Here are some notes:

The case for a stone patio:

Most decks have to be replaced roughly every 15-20 years. This means the thing you are building today is your own future liability. If you spend $2k in materials, that's $100-130/year in depreciation, plus the value of your labor.

Also, speaking of liability, your insurance agent will add a deck to the replacement value of your home and charge you more for insurance, but a paver patio is often overlooked as landscaping and won't add to your insurance bill.

A paver patio will last at least 50 years and may cost less in materials than a deck, depending on the price of lumber. However, building a patio means moving hundreds of pounds of gravel and sand, and then carefully grading the sand using a 2x6 board to have a specified slope away from the house before you lay the pavers. Some skill with leveling string lines and grading is required. It may not be as economical if your space is sloped. YouTube offers lots of good videos on this technique.

Paver patio details:

After you've set pavers in place, use a product called polymeric sand. Sweep the polymeric sand into the grooves between pavers, then spray with a water hose. When it dries, the pavers are basically caulked together and won't let grass grow through them. It's a great product! A $20 sack covers about the size of a bedroom.

I've not noticed the heat sink effect @lthenderson mentions, but my paver patio uses bright gray concrete pavers and is on the north side of the house. You do need to think about heat and sun exposure when picking pavers. I used plain 12x12 concrete squares at less than $2 each.

Note that not all 12x12 squares are 12x12. When I bought all of the pavers at Lowes, I went across the street to WalMart to pick up more, but the WalMart pavers turned out to be 0.25" bigger! They ended up being used on a sidewalk and I had to find another Lowes to finish my patio!

Home improvement stores sell a dirt packing tool, but I built my own out of an old 4x4 with a small deck plank screwed on bottom and a board handle up higher. I used this to pack the gravel, then the sand into the gravel, being careful to keep my slope as planned. Then I wrapped the plank with an old towel and used it to tamp the pavers into the sand. I occassionally had to pull up a paver after tamping it to throw some more sand underneath or remove sand so it would fit flush.

Budget for 5-10% waste due to accidentally cracking patio pavers!

Not gonna lie: Paver patios are a lot more work than decks. But I think their permanence makes up for the initial investment. It's something you'll never have to fix again.

If you do go with a deck:

Wrap tar paper over the tops of the joists and staple each side to the sides of the joists. Do this before laying down the planks. Why? Because this keeps water off the joists, doubles their lifespan, and allow you to reuse the joists in 15-20 years when you have to replace the planks. If you are using expensive composite planks that will last 25-30 years this makes even more sense. If you don't wrap the planks, the joists will fail before the planks!

Use bolts to attach the joists/bands to the 4x4 or 6x6 posts, and don't drill the bolt holes too large. Any other method will yield a wobbly deck.

Your home improvement store will sell pre-cut stair strainers for a lot of money. They're worth it unless you are an accomplished carpenter!

DO NOT attach the deck to your house. Build it to stand on its own legs. I just had to replace a bunch of rotted out support beams under my house because the PO hung the deck on the brick veneer, creating an issue where water was funneled through the brinks to the crawl space. A free-standing deck is also much easier for inspectors to inspect. And they will inspect it. The attachment point to the house is usually where decks fail, in addition to creating water intrusion issues. Plus, think ahead to 15-20 years when you'll be rebuilding the deck and how nice it will be to not have to work over the house interface!

You should stain or paint your non-composite deck to get a couple more years out of it. Consider that a dark color or stain will get hot in the sun, and will show pollen and dust. Let the new lumber dry out for 6 months before painting, and sand the wood with an electric sander before painting it.

[GuitarStv]

We went with pavers, and I really like it.  Looks good, doesn't need treatment/paint/staining, pretty simple to DIY.  Every 5-6 years we weed it heavily and put polymeric sand down.  That's about it though.

[Bartlebooth]

Your patio door is 4 feet above ground.  I really really really would not want to walk out the door and immediately go down a set of stairs.  I think it is unconventional to have stairs immediately near a door, and possibly against code, especially if you have a storm door that swings outward.  My wife dreams of tearing down our beat up back deck and revealing the concrete slab that is under it.  I will nurse the deck along "one more year" over and over, just to avoid the ridiculous small platform and stairs that would have to be built outside the door.  And it is still functional, of course.  Much better IMHO to have a large usable platform...room for someone to hold the storm door while you unlock the inner door, etc.  Maybe you have a sliding patio door and a lot of this is irrelevant, but still I would want a usable area at the same level as the door.

Anyways...synthetic decking seems to be the most popular, but so is living paycheck to paycheck!  Kidding.  I would not use synthetic is a sunny spot as it gets very hot.  I am a fan of the exotic woods like ipe (environmentally unfashionable now) or black locust which is what I went with two years ago.  Cedar is great but I would probably do a colored stain to avoid the grey look that it would have in a year or two.  Cedar-tone pressure treated I would not like but it looks better than regular pressure-treated at least.  It appears I have to stain the black locust wood yearly to keep an unweathered appearance, which is a 3-hour $20 job.

Put joists closer together than legally required, and/or thicker deck boards than required.  I have 1" actual thickness hardwood on 12" spaced joists--so stiff.  The price difference is probably only hundreds.  I actually went with 12" joist spacing to be more efficient in use of boards that were 3-10' random lengths on 1' intervals so cost was nearly a wash.

A beam underneath joists seems better to me than a beefy rim supporting joists, though both are certainly valid.

If you build within 2' or so of the ground, you probably don't need (check code) railings around the perimeter nor on the steps.  I guess this would be two steps from ground to deck and two steps from deck to patio door.  Railings are a lot of work and expense, and I think don't look that good.  Some people are annoyed by 2' edges with no railing but it is something to think about.  A code-compliant railing would look extremely out of place on our century home so we don't have one.

[HipGnosis]

Your home improvement store will sell pre-cut stair strainers for a lot of money. They're worth it unless you are an accomplished carpenter!

Not precisely true.  I have done quite a few home improvement type projects, but not much carpentry.
I recently built a set of (replacement) deck stairs.
I used https://www.mycarpentry.com/stair-calculator.html .
I used their #s to make a cardboard template of the 'notches' to cut, & traced it onto the 2X12's.
The stairs turned out nice - much nicer than the hand rail I did by 'eye'.

[zolotiyeruki]

I built a deck off the back of our house about 6 years ago.  I'd never done it before.

1) Our local city building department has a packet with all the requirements, steps for permitting/inspecting, etc. specifically for decks, because it is such a popular improvement.
2) Tools:  I used a wide variety, partially because I *have* a wide variety of tools available.  Circular saw, drill, picks and shovels for moving dirt, renting the biggest auger Home Depot has available (rocky soil!), string line, wheelbarrow for mixing cement, hammer, miter saw for cutting decking boards to length, jig saw for cutting decking boards around posts ...the list goes on.
3) I used pressure treated for posts, framing, and guard rail posts, and composite for the decking, post sleeves, and railings.  I used 1/2" electrical conduit, painted black, for the balusters.

Photos of it finished are here.

A few comments on topics others have brought up:
1) I didn't know about taping the tops of the joists and sealing the ends of the lumber, so mine aren't sealed/taped.  I wish I had.  We're 6 years in, and there's no problems yet, but I'd feel better if I had.
2) Our deck is a bit over 5' above grade.  I love that we can step out the door directly on to it.
3) Cutting your own stair stringers is no big deal.  I made a template out of a piece of copy paper.  I measured 7.5 inches down the short side and 10 inches down the long side, and connected those points. Cut it out and you have a template.  Easy peasy.
3) I could have built it with the joists 16" on center, but opted to spend the small extra sum to space them 12" O.C.  I'm glad I did--the closer spacing makes the deck feel WAY sturdy, and the decking boards have not sagged at all between joists.
4) I am very glad I took the (considerable) extra time to build the railing the way I did.  It looks fantastic (the black balusters are much narrower than using the square composite spindles, and were cheaper), and the guard rails feel significantly sturdier.
5) Our local code requires it to be tied to the structure of the house, and there are specific instructions and hardware to do just that.  Make sure you weatherproof it properly!!!
6) I used galvanized through-bolts plus construction adhesive for attaching the guard rail posts to the framing, and bolted it to multiple horizontal framing members where possible to minimize the possibility of the post leaning over time.
7) I selected a light wood tone for our composite decking.  It rapidly faded (it was cheap) to a light grey.  It doesn't get hot in the summer at all.

What would I do differently next time?
1) Make it bigger.  It extends 12' from the house and is 16' long.  I wish it extended another 2' out, to make it easy to get around the table, and I wish it were 4' longer, so there would be room for the grill.
2) Tape the joists and seal the ends of the lumber.
3) A slightly larger pad at the base of the stairs.  I made mine 2'x3' or so, and it could use another foot of depth.

[Bartlebooth]

Many jurisdictions allow the use of "DiamondPiers" instead of digging deep frost footings.  I would have had to dig 48" down.  Probably a big job even with an auger, as I had 12 piers to put in.  And I had remnants of an old foundation to work around which would have caused auger problems.

So I used the DiamondPiers, which are concrete blocks with sleeves for long metal rods to go through.  The rods get driven through the block into the ground and provide a code-approved pier.  My impression is that they have been around long enough now that the skeptics are becoming scarce...natural part of any new construction technology.

Just an option I wanted to mention.

[Just Joe]

Build it stronger than required.

Thicker decking boards and joists closer together than required. Visited on someone who had a deck built and it was bouncy. I assume the more people the worse it would bounce.

I have been inside spec houses that were the same. Bouncy family rooms which were very noticeable during social gatherings with a ~12+ people. The difference in cost would be minimal to build it with heavier construction.