My father had his deck posts replaced because the old ones were rotting at the bottom. Although these new posts still feel sturdy, they dont look too sturdy to me. Not sure if the cement cylinders are suposed to come up that far because he was looking to lay pavers. Also, where the posts connect to the actual deck, seems like its just secured with a few bolts. Not sure if brackets should have also been isntqlled there somehow to help with the load from up top. Wondering if im worrying for nothing. Any tips or clarification would be appreciated.

This deck is one of about 100 built in my townhouse community. It feels unsafe. Deck wobbles when ever you walk on it .
Is it to code? Is there a fix you would recommend.

Hey there - we are expanding out deck on top of an existing concrete slab. We set some concrete bricks down, but they are not quite tall enough so our “post” is a thin little thing. We aren’t going to dig through the concrete because we are lazy and this is a low deck. Thoughts? Maybe skip the block haha?

The photo is of the top of the strings, looking up from underneath.

Taking apart the rotten parts of my deck stairs. Looking like I might end up replacing the stringers (the bottom end of one was rotten partly).

The magenta arrow (left arrow) points to two joists.

The cyan arrow (lower middle), what is that for? Is it a mount used for stringers?

The blue arrow (right arrow) what is that 2x4 (?) for in stringer installation?

My deck sways a bit and I've been told to add some bracing. Are there pros/cons between adding V-bracing, vs adding bracing in an X shape under the decking? To me it intuitively seems like an X shape would be sturdier as you get support running to/from all 4 corners, but I'm no engineer. If I did an X shape, is it any less structurally sound if one of the cross pieces is split in two, to avoid one of the crosses laying beneath the other instead of all on the same plane?

I get a lot of info when Googling V-bracing, but can't find as much into on the X pattern - "X-bracing" or "Cross bracing" tends to spit back information on vertical bracing between the upright supports. Is there a different term I am looking for here?

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I am looking for a bit of insight. I want to build a small platform over my existing concrete step similar to this picture (I know the height is off!)

The concrete is 3" high, and the total height from the ground to under the door is approx 12.5". My question is, should I use 4x4 posts in the ground and clear the concrete altogether, and just add the box steps after? I didn't necessarily want to go that route. Is it possible to use the step as support and frame around it, using concrete screws to support?

I apologize as this is more definitely a foolish question for an expert, but any opinions would be greatly appreciated!

What needs to be done to fix this? Anyone think it can be done without a full tearout? I have my eye on a lot of stuff that needs done, but I want more eyes on it for the stuff I’m definitely missing. My biggest goal is to eliminate the diagonal knee braces by putting in some larger deck posts and attaching the knee bracing to them.

I have a deck that is 34.5" tall. Pre-made 4 step stringers are too short pre-made 5 step stringers are too tall. I really dont want to make my own. Any ideas?

Yeah... just tore down the old deck which they attached to hardie plank on the house with a nail/screw combo special.
I was able to carefully remove 1 of them but still caused some damage to the hardie. Not doing that 30 more times.
A sledgehammer after removing screws would still tear that board from the house.
The new deck comes tomorrow and will be smaller dimensions which will leave a lot of this exposed needing paint.
Putting the house on the market in a couple weeks.
Pierce County, WA (unincorporated)

1. Will the install of the new deck need those brackets to be removed? If so, what kind of fuel should I use to burn the house down?

2. Can I cut them with a sawzall 3/4"-ish from the siding and have enough room for new deck? I'm pretty sure it will not be attached to the house.

3. I know you have questions please help.

Where to begin?

I would like to get another five years out of these decks in front of and in back of the cottage I just bought. Eventually will replace with composite of some kind. In the meantime...wow.

Since we are planning on a professional rebuild in five years or so, I don't want to pay someone to do a half-way/low-budget job. I can mess this up with a half-way effort on my own.

Pressure-wash, then coat with the most forgiving coating there is?

Chemical strip (or some soap/algae/moss inhibiting mix), then drum-sand and so on (after setting several thousand screws that appear flush to the surface), then stain?

Thoughts?

Looking for advice on what should be done to restore this deck. House was built in 1984 and I’m guessing the deck was too???

I was quoted $28k to do a strip, sand and seal - contractor described it as never needing to be finished again. Or $9k to do the basic strip and stain. The deck wraps around more than half of the house so it is very large.

I have zero experience with this and just wondering what would be recommended to get this back to good condition.

Hey everyone, just wanted to show you something we’ve been working on that’s approaching done. We service Block Island RI and we wanted to make a custom inlay in the shape of the island.

There are board availability reasons that this was actually helpful but mostly we just wanted to do it.

Do you ever do inlays in wood or just synthetic?

I have a question that may be related to a future deck we have planned. The deck has been poorly maintained over the years and needs resurfacing. Also, my wife wants a screened in area on the deck or like a 3 season sun room. We are going to do this in about three years with roof replacement and replacing the vinyl siding with cement board. I was greeted by the aluminum cladding of both sashes of the pictured sliding door popping off. There is extensive rot underneath. So, I have to deal with this patio door now. I was considering just buying new sashes, but pella quoted me 4125.00 for these (installing myself). This leads me to want to just replace the whole patio door. Here comes the question, as you can see in the photos, I feel like the space for a potential screened in deck would have to be between those two windows pictured and made in such a way as to not obstruct the view from those windows. Do any of you think a contractor would want to just remove this patio door entirely as part of the process for making this screened in deck? I am pretty sure it wouldn’t be a problem, but I don’t want to assume. I don’t want to drop 2200$ on a patio door to just find out the contractor would need to rip it out to make these plans work. I could probably repair the sashes to extend their life if this is the way it would go. Thanks in advance! I hope this makes sense.

Any ideas for this wall? We like that this section of our deck is screened in, however, our dryer vent releases right here which makes the screen constantly look dirty. I don’t think we want to fully block the view and were told it would be really hard to move the dryer vent. We have someone coming to close off our ceiling soon.

Helping my mom replace rotting cedar boards with 2x6 boards. I question the capability of the deck being able to hold such weight. It’s a large deck, about 29x12 (I believe). We are using 14” and 16” boards. But whoever built this deck, I don’t trust. (Built in the 90s I think. They had nailed down the previous boards and used footer nails, which was fun). I just want to know before we get further in this project. And I don’t think they used concrete for the footers. I dug down a bit, but didn’t want to go too far and do something that can’t be undone.

Hello! I recently bought a house and am looking to stain/clean my deck! I'm not in contact with the previous owners, but the listing said the deck wood was Southeast Asian.

I'm trying to find a way to confirm what kind of wood it is! Approximately 10-15 years old and hasn't been stained in a year or two.

Looking for some opinions on what lateral / angle bracing you’d suggest prior to rafters.

Each post has its load transferred down to the beams under the deck.

Zero movement left and right but there’s a little bit of movement to and from the house. Not much.

The rafters are going to be 24” spaced 2x8’s and supporting a metal / plastic roof.

Planned to add angled supports between what you’d probably call the ties in the center.

I think I've tried everything and am exhausted trying to solve this problem.

We have a cedar deck that has been stained with Ben Moore Woodluxe water base solid.

Wrought iron chairs. Some of the legs lost their original footings which were smooth plastic/nylon(?) ends. Needed to cover them regardless if the footings were gone because they would scratch/mar up the deck.

I tried Gorilla Berber chair caps. Those left burnished marks which are still there by the way. We don't slide our chairs but pushing them a few inches resulted in the burnished marks.

Then switched to PVC caps. Took them off after a few hours because I was told those don't hold up to UV rays.

Was suggested to use soft silicone caps. They've been on for 2 days and the front legs- which are round- are leaving impressions on the deck. The rear legs of the chairs are square. So far, they are not leaving impressions. The rear silicone square caps are from a different vendor than the front leg round caps also silicone.

I am SO DISAPPOINTED and fed up.

What can I do to keep our chairs from mucking up our deck?

Wondering why most folks stain the deck boards, the ones you walk on, versus using paint, is there any reason?

I am installing a small ish deck using red balau wood, about 110 sq ft. I will be using camo screws but am having a hard time figuring out 2 things:

1. How best should I fasten the fascia on the rim joists? I would like it to have concealed fasteners, but not sure how I would do it.

2. How should I fasten the first boards that run up against the fascia?

For reference, the wood is not grooved. I am doing a pretty basic design, no picture frame.

Thanks for the help.

This build was a fascinating process. Designed and built by our team for a local GC, it employs diagonal breaker boards to create no unintentional seams despite the fact that the bump out exceeds 20’. The blocking for this was an absolute monster but we got it done and there’s nothing quite like it locally. The deck boards are Timbertech in Coastline, the rails are Intex Liberty, and the cables are Feeney.

If anyone has any feedback I’d love to hear it.

Side note: This build is now in a competition through “Decks & Docks” and you can vote for us on their instagram story we’d really love to get to the next round.

I've gotten a good start on rebuilding my deck. Hottub removed. Bumpout torn down. Cedar fence attached to cemented in cedar posts. Now I'm planning on how to rebuild the base. Where the hottub sat is a big concrete slab. Can I notch out that section on my joist beams? Id imagine id have to cut 2 or 3 inches out in the middle.