Curved Deck

[Flats]

Hi all,

I though I'd share my deck building experience as a rank amateur, with some photos of how it's turned out. I poured over these forums before I started and got heaps of great info so I'll be as detailed as possible to help anyone else out.

My deck was a rather ambitious build for someone with no building experience, as such it's over engineered and took far longer than I ever thought it would (7 weekends) but the whole thing has been worth it, I love how it's turn out.

It's about 35msq with a semicircular side protruding out the back at the same time wrapping around a tree. The construction is with 300mm metal stirrups as posts, 2x(120x45mm) treated Pine for the bearers and 90x45mm joists, Batu for the decking.

I didn't have much room to play with (250mm) in terms of clearance and used a kanga to get another 100mm. (pic 1)

Not being very confident in my abilities to get posts in straight and level I fixed ledgers (90x45) along all the walls so at least I had a reference that was reliable. I then made the bearers and preattached the posts before digging the post holes. Having the holes dug I turned the bearers over so the posts were in the holes and jacked them up to the correct height, spent about 1/2 a day making sure the whole lot has level from all planes. (no photos of this stage sorry)

I hired a concrete taxi for 1m3 of concrete and filled in my 25 posts holes.

Heres the first 3 pics:

[Flats]

The joists were all continuous spans, max length being 6 metres. 80% of the lengths were straight, 10% were bowed but could be straightened the remained were twisted. There doesn't seem much you can do about the twisted ones, I basically used these for any smaller lengths required. I had to order more timber as my planning in that department was deficient.

I got the timber from Colli, my builder recommended them.

Joists are fastened to the Bearers by Pryda connectors, I bought a couple of boxes of these at Bunnings because I didn't want to angle nail through the joists into the bearers.

Bearers were topped with black plastic weather strip.

All nails are galvanised, 40mm Clouts for the connectors, 75mm twisted shank nails joining the bearers together, hammered from both sides.

[Flats]

We're up to weekend 4. All joists are down and cut to the curve. The original plan was to have the tree coming out of a circle cut into the deck but the roots proved too problematic. I would have had to cut through some fairly sizable roots that were above the surface to get the bearers across. Given the trees proximity to the house I didn't think it wise to remove many more! As such the tree is accommodated with a U cut.

The Batu decking is nailed with 57mm twisted shank galvanised nails. This Batu is as hard as buggery, all holes are predrilled with a 2.5mm bit (nails are 2.8mm) even so some of the nails just refuse to budge and will bend rather than go in. Getting any bended nails out was also a challenge, I needed to clamp the board down and use a crow bar on the nail, it would come out like a gun shot, Very VERY hard wood. No wonder it's rated as naturally termite resistant.

I nailed every bugger by hand, for the love of God use an air gun or screw gun or something else, it's damn hard and slow work. There's about 10kg of nails in that deck!

The camera went missing for a while but tomorrow I'll take and post the after shots.

[Dusty]

Great going, Flats.

Looks like your having a ball.

My advice is, give whatever your doing now for a living the #### and take up building decks and pergolas. You'd be very good at it, and as a bonus, you'd make a stack of money as well.

Looking forward to the finishing round of pictures. The one's where your sitting on the deck enjoying cold beer.

[Bleedin Thumb]

Thats really strange I thought I posted on this thead this morning.

Anyway good stuff Flats, I like the way you put the posts on the bearers.
I'm about to do a deck at home with similar shallow depth so I will use your idea there.. I'll call it the Flats method.

Could I ask a favour ...is it possible for you to do a costing and convert it to a per sq.m price so I will have an idea of how much i should budget for?

Cheers
Tony

[Flats]

Thanks for the feedback guys! The cold beer is coming very soon.

The deck has now been cleaned with Cabots Deck Clean, I'll be coating it with Cabots Natural Decking Oil with a Jarrah tint. I'm trying to get a seemless indoor/outdoor thing going so in summer I can throw those sliding stacking doors open and double the living space. It's actually worked very well, both the indoor Jarrah floor and decking levels are exact, just a small step over the door sills.

As for costings it was something like this:

Colli Timber
16 6m lengths of 90x45
9 6m lengths of 120x45
425 lm Batu 90x19
$2,382.49

I got builders prices though as my builder asked them nicely.

I was short both Pine and Batu however so I spent another $400 or so at Bunnings for Pine and another $180 for 2msq of Batu for $180 or so at Colli.

Timber all up therefore around the $3k mark

Galv posts are around $10 each - 25 of them = $250
Nails, bolts, screws easily another $100-$150
Pyrda connectors are approx 70c each, about 80 of them = $56
Black weather strip, comes in 12m rolls something like $12 a roll (not sure of this), 3 rolls = $36
$200 for the concrete
$180 for hiring the Kanga

Deck clean, deck oil and applicators another $180.

Not counting the petrol for all the trips to buy stuff nor the hours and hours of the relentless banging at all hours.

So approx $115 per sq mtr ($4000/35).

[Flats]

Forgot the latest pics...

[Bleedin Thumb]

Hi Flats its come up a treat hasn't it. My only suggestion is that it needs a skirt - not easy on a curve!

Thanks for those costings I will use those to work out my budget.
The area I have to deal with is 75 sq.m
My problem is the council says that before I build a deck I need
1. A boundary survey
2. A geotechnical report for land slip.
3. An engineers report.
So with council fees I'm looking at around $4K before I even start.
The stupid thing is that I can pave the area without any approvals which is worse for the environment than a timber deck.

So I'll just build a small deck infront of my office ( 25 sq.m) without the councils approval and pave the rest.

[Bleedin Thumb]

Me again.
One last question As your posts look like they were 2 m spacings could you have had your bearers at 450 mm spacings and done away with the joists ?

[Flats]

Yeah the skirt is coming, I'm thinking of something like a 150mm strip of exterior 3-4mm ply or similar? Maybe I need to go marine ply, anyone able to recommend something? Either that or I make a brick or stone wall around the edge.

Post spacings were 1600mm apart, the width of the deck is 7.2m. I had the posts spaced like 400-1600-1600-1600-1600-400 with each - representing a post. My bearers are spaced 1000mm apart.

If I had foregone the joists I'd have needed 12 bearer equivilents (instead of 5) and around 60 post holes! Probably easier and cheaper (not to mention probably the same volume of concrete) to just lay a slab and attach the joists to it if clearance was that big an issue.

[Bleedin Thumb]

Hi Flats,
I think the ply would be the go because the tree roots will mess with brickwork. I'd be guessing if I recommended outdoor Vs marine though.