Loki's Deck

[Dusty]

Excellent work, Loki.

Great narrative also. It will be of useful assistance to others further down the track, who tackle their own deck building.

Never fails to amaze me, how quick we all "think" we are going to get the boards down, verses how long it actually takes.

Including the spa, when it goes in and when all the decking is done and dusted, have you got a final costing on materials and your time. Or, have you skillfully avoided keeping a tab on the $$$$, which is generally the less stressful way to go

Nice view too.

[Loki429]

Hi Dusty

Yes I agree about the time - I had some rapid progress early on in the building and assumed the rest would go just as quick!
As for budget, yes I'm keeping a close tab on everything I buy. I'll post a summary when its complete.
We've budgeted $25k for it. There's $10k for the spa, and I'm up to $12k in timber, materials, hardware, a couple of tools and a few cases of beer! I need to order some more timber but that should be less than $1k.
No pricing on labour but I will do an hour estimate when finished. It's been about 14 days work so far. Oh yeah we spent about $2.5k just getting council approval, structural engineers report, certifier, owner-builder license etc before I even started

[Loki429]

Here's a couple of pics of the rafters before and after cleaning them up.
They were way too marked and dirty to use as is especially as they will be getting a clear coat of oil.
Anyway all the rafters are up now and looking good.

BTW - they're F17 kiln dried hardwood, 190 x 45. I was hoping to use treated pine for the pergola as it would have been lighter and easier to work with but the span is 4.0m, spacing 0.9m and needed something stronger according to the structural engineer. (The tables in Allan Staines book indicate I could have use 170 x 35 F5 seasoned though - I think the structural engineer over spec'd a lot of this stuff!)

[pawnhead]

(The tables in Allan Staines book indicate I could have use 170 x 35 F5 seasoned though - I think the structural engineer over spec'd a lot of this stuff!)

They do that all the time just to cover their bums, and sometimes they don't seem to care how much it costs you. It's annoying when the code lets you get away with a lot less.

[UteMad]

Excellent work, Loki.


Never fails to amaze me, how quick we all "think" we are going to get the boards down, verses how long it actually takes.


Nice view too.

Here Here!!!!!!!

Get it all the time or they can't translate m2 to lineal to work out they have like 1000 lm of deck at 5 bucks per metre and that adds up DOH!!!!

Cheers Utemad

[oohsam]

hahaha thats gold....Lineal is easy as to calculate..LOL...
I do it the "dumbass way"...Figure out your length if its 10 meters then you need 1x 10 meter board.
calculate how many boards you need by the width of the deck Divide by width of board...then you know how many boards you need at 10meters...DONE and DONE!

LOL..Im sure there is a "proper way" to do it..but I hated maths all my life...and I stil do : )

[silentC]

I do it the same but I divide by the width of the board plus gap. So for a 90mm board, I divide by 95. Over a wide deck, that can add up to a couple less boards needed. Say your deck was 10 metres by 5 metres and you're using 90mm boards. If you say 5000/90 * 10 you will order about 560 lineal metres. If you say 5000/95 * 10 you will order about 530. That's a big difference.

[oohsam]

Yeah I see what you're saying, but I normally add 10% for wastage...So this way I dont add the 10% and the wastage is already in there.

[silentC]

Yep fair enough. I just used up the last 10 1800 boards that I had left over from the verandahs that I did last year on a set of steps. There's always a use for it.

[brynk]

BTW - they're F17 kiln dried hardwood, 190 x 45. I was hoping to use treated pine for the pergola as it would have been lighter and easier to work with but the span is 4.0m, spacing 0.9m and needed something stronger according to the structural engineer. (The tables in Allan Staines book indicate I could have use 170 x 35 F5 seasoned though - I think the structural engineer over spec'd a lot of this stuff!)

what type of roof covering do you plan on putting up? does the engineer have a wind category rating on your drawings? it will be n-something - n2? n3?

[UteMad]

Lineal metres to square metres everyone has there own way... Decking ranges from 86 - 90mm anyway so we do 11.11111111111 LM / m2 for 4 inch plus waste (easy you just do 11 then point 1 til the calc screen is full) ... Seems to work plus if i run short the labour down time costs far more than the boards i will take to the next one..

cheers utemad

[Loki429]

I calculated the lm of decking by dividing the width of the deck by the board width plus gap, then rounded up to the next nearest number. Then multiply that number by the length of the deck to get a lm amount.

As for the structural details - the structural engineers report did not include any details regarding wind classification, however plans from when the house was built (3 years ago) have "wind classification W33N" stamped on them. Roof covering will be "Suntuf" sheets. We're northern beaches of Sydney so certainly not in a cyclone zone!

Today I did a lot of the fiddly stuff - ripped some boards to the correct width to fit against the house and cut some others to size with cutouts to fit around the posts.

No pics today sorry - I'll take some more when there's enough to show up on a photo!

[Barry_White]

Roof covering will be "Suntuf" sheets.

Loki

I would rethink roofing it in Suntuf. You will cook under it in the summer time and it will be uncomfortable in the winter. If you do a search you would find a few adverse comments about polycarbonate/fiberglass sheeting as roofs on entertainment/outdoor areas.

[Loki429]

Been doing some fiddly bits over the last few days, and I'm now back at work so it will only be weekends from now on!

Anyway I trimmed the vertical faces (ends & sides of joists) with some decking, did the cutouts around the posts, and whilst I had the circular saw setup for mitre cuts I thought I'd make a tray thingy for the dog's bowls! I already had one problem where the bowl left a black mark on the deck that needed sanding to remove. (It was only there for half a day, just had a bit of water spilt from it .
This way the bowls are off the deck and won't harm it. It also stops the dogs from sliding the bowl around the deck at 4:00am and waking us up.

I've ordered some more timber for the handrails and the stairs and should be picking up the suntuf roofing this weekend. (And yes Barry I am aware of the heat under that type of roofing.) More pics when that's done.

Oh yeah - the last pic is the view from the house early one morning last week. Pretty weird to get fog/mist that thick in our area!

[pawnhead]

Looks good. Nice spot you've got there.

Have you sorted out your stair design yet?

(And yes Barry I am aware of the heat under that type of roofing.)

I've got it on mine and it's not that bad, although the suntuf skylights in the adjoining room make it quite hot compared to the rest of the house. The rest of the house has a high pitched roof as well though so it stays relatively cool.
It looks like the heat won't get trapped under yours anyway.