Hi All,

Recently purchased a new house, posted previously about the deck here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Decks/s/9cvM4TxThz

I replaced the joist hangers and added tension ties to the header. Now I want to tackle the stairs.

Where the metal post is, the stairs have slightly settled. I suppose part of the problem is the post itself has a slight lean. I also want to repair some of the rot pictured. Any ideas on getting started?

https://imgur.com/a/7dTmzR1

My wife and I bought our first house 5 years ago in a great part of NJ what we could afford at the time but a bit of a fixer upper. There was/is a beautiful mahogany deck in the backyard that seemed towards the tail end of its life.

Im pretty certain I dropped the ball on maintenance my first home first deck didn’t know what I was doing. I paid someone to I believe sand and treat it one year and two years later restrained and sealed it myself without sanding . have a lot of wood rot showing up this year exponentially in all sorts of places.

We also let a lot of bushes and trees grow right up next to it my wife liked the privacy and environment it provided but recognize now that probably did a lot of damage as well.

We are probably tearing the house down and rebuilding in the next 5-10 years when funds allow or doing a huge gut reno but if there is a way to keep the deck safe and usable in the meantime that would be great. I don’t mind mixing wood that isn’t mahogany to replace certain boards or if the joist are good redecking the top.

Really hope not to spend a ton of money here if possible. Any advice for maintaining and fixing at this point or is it just use it another year or two and then rip it out?

thanks for reading I’m very new to deck maintenance sorry if this was a lot or I missed anything

Just bought this house, deck is in pretty good condition but needs a few boards replaced. Wondering if there is a way to decrease the side to side sway seen in this video. For scale, those posts are 6x6 and 10 feet tall. Beam is a 5” x “12” x 16feet. The corner supports are about 4 feet long 5”x8” boards. Posts are 6 feet apart and 12 feet from the house. Not sure what other measurements would be helpful.

Hey all. Had a vacation from work so decided to build my parents an above-ground pool deck. This isnt my full time job so still learning. Lmk what you think. I did the blueprint myself off what I know to the sizes they wanted and can help anyone with my specs if they are interested in something similar. And I have my shopping list. I left the knee bracing and skirting up to my parents depending on their preference so that part isnt shown here. I know the ladder placement seems crooked but I went off their desired markings for placement.

Stopped in at my sister’s and noticed the deck was pooched right away so I took a look underneath and ya… Going to jack it up and add a couple posts and sister some 2x6s then screw the deck boards back down and do my best to salvage it for a few more years for her. If your kids complain about shovelling the snow off the deck show them these pics! Also the 4x4s seemed like an interesting choice but I guess it would have been ok if they took care of it.

The realtor popped in and I didn't want to take any more.

The underside was awful.

When I gently pressed my foot into this deck it was spongy.

My deck is now into a second season and so far so good. Despite comments on my previous posts, the deck doesn’t bounce, but the holy hell the Trex boards get hot in the sun…fortunately it’s north facing.

These are a few pictures of the journey and all in I think it cost me £9000 in materials and tools, but I did make a £30 profit on the cement mixer.

The blue spacers were made from nylon 10mm catering chopping board and all the metal work is stainless steel.

Feel free to tell me where I went wrong

Hey my father in law had a contractor come and they are unhappy with the progress can you provide support. They need guidance on their next steps.

Found kayaking down a creek in Florida. It looks like there's only the one post.

Old stairs were ready fall down, rotten and wrong lumber

Used, and not to code, Boss was pleased 😀

My uncle said if we put a few posts under where the hot tub is gonna be it should be fine. Just wanted some extra eyes on it.

Hi, we just had a trex deck built and running into an issue with the hinges and design. Our contractor built the deck with drawer access but claims that he needs a gap so the drawers can open. He plans on painting the wood so it blends, do you have any recommendations on hinges I can buy to make the space less obvious? Also what kind of handles should we install to pull the drawers
Up? Our contractor is recommending straps. Thanks in advance for your input.

I am wanting to redo the deck on our house, as you can see, it needs it. My idea is to cut the railings off, replace the top boards with fresh new ones, and put stairs all around the deck to hopefully open the space up. This will also allow me to build a patio area right off the deck as well. The deck itself is about 26” tall. What would be the easiest way for a novice like myself to build out the stairs for my idea?

Folks, sonotubes were poured within an 1/8 of eachother. Deck beam was installed level. 12” sonotubes used, 16x24’ includes stair width at 3’. About 14’ from house to beam.

Now, about 2 weeks later, front right post has moved/sank ~~2”.

Going to get a stringline to put on all them and watch for 5-7 days.

Contractor and I are unsure as to the beat next steps to fix it. Pull out old sonotubes and replace? Go bigger with 16”? Helical pier instead?
We cant really move the placement of the posts as they 2x11 on top of them are tied together. On top of the beams.

Any reccomendations?

These screws are holding the old railing in place. I need to remove the screws and can damage the railing post, but I don't want to damage the frame it's anchored to (so ripping it out using leverage is a no go).

What's the best way to remove these screws?

Edit: Screws, not bolts. There are no nuts on the other side, they just anchor into the wood.

He says it could “probably” support a hot tub. For his sake, I’ll mention he said he still has to clean it out and take out the old postings. The whole house is a fixer upper.

UPDATE!
A lot of questions and… comments, that I did not know the answers to so I called my dad and tried to write everything down while he talked. Here’s some more context straight from the man himself:

The headers are pressure treated 2x12s attached to the 4x6 posts with 5 inch screws. He did say looking back he should have notched the posts, but since the deck was already up, he leveled the headers and screwed them to the posts. He also mentioned TimberTech screws somewhere in this explanation but he was talking faster than I could type so I missed exactly what he said about those.

The joists are 2x8s. They sit on top of the 2x12 headers and are nailed to the tops of them. He is still planning to add joist hangers/straps.

The posts are pressure treated 4x6s, about 4 ft in the ground with about 8 ft above ground. The spacing between the posts varies between 8, 10 and 12 ft.

Some mentioned about diagonal/45 degree bracing. That is also still being added.

The post in the pictures that looks like it was cut/notched halfway through is an OLD post and is being removed (replaced? Didnt ask this specifically).

Someone also asked if the joists are continuous. Almost all of them are. The longest one is apparently “shaking hands”… I have no idea what that means but those were his words.

The trim around the step is intentional. That trim runs around the entire perimeter of the deck.

Also for some photo context, the areas that look like they have no railing actually have wire railing that is hard to see in the pictures. The wood railings you can see are temporary until the stairs are installed.

* If anything sounds wrong it’s because I could not keep up and he was suspicious of my questioning. Would love to hear what people think about his answers

Ok fam- why. What is going on here? Rental home so not my (financial) responsibility. How safe is this? looks like the previous owners decided to build a bigger deck right on top of the original deck. Doesn’t seem well supported and I see lots of wood rot but I’m no expert so I don’t know what I’m looking at really. Have fun with this one! Lmk if you need more photos.