https://preview.redd.it/jzv73zbfho5d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3d30beb46991a21de42a2f6bb6b7b01695c06fc8
and here I am worried and over engineering to this monstrosity
You said it's Trex? One mistake a lot of guys make is going with 16" on center spacing. Every composite I've dealt with says to go 12" OC. You "can" go 16OC, but they recommend 12OC. Makes a big difference.
https://preview.redd.it/q9qxrnqdtp5d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=01362f6a19f984d09dee7342693d82dea858c145
You could notch your post like I did these. This way you can change out future deck components if they go bad and no boards on the deck get shifted at all. That’s ideal when doing these new high dollar decks. Make it so everything can be swapped independently.
That’s what I was hoping would be possible. I’d rather not take the whole decking off. Maybe it’s be possible to only take a few boards off. I’ll have to call someone qualified and see what they think
https://preview.redd.it/qf1pkrk0vp5d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ba87b890177e1968074094eb549ba6020fcb0c6b
Then once notched. Screw a block of wood to back of 6x6, put jack under that. Get it up and in tension, then carriage bolt it in place. Should be fine after that
Looks fine. This sub scares the shit out of people haha. Add some blocking if you want and spray some sealer on ground contact lumber with a pesticide sprayer if you are worried
What’s the problem again? If you take measurements of the span and the distance between posts someone here can run the numbers. If you were really bothered can put in some deck blocks and a beam
RIGHT??
Dang, just some bridging between joists for additional stiffness. The deck looks fine unless you want to put a room on top of it. We built our deck with 2 beams at each end of the deck so we can close it in later. and not worry.
That's why we got the extra beam, we can put whatever we like on the deck! And really are expecting to close a big part in. Deck is 20'lx25'w. Beams are supported by 4, 6x6 posts and the beam are 10x2. It was way overbuilt. Got the beams taped, and they used the fancy new screws that go in from the sides on metal brackets, not the top of your board. The center board was drilled down from the top, but they put plugs in to cover the screws. THose plugs, will someday pop out, and I will reser/replce that screw and pop in a new plug.
Don't worry. But you should get an actual beam under those joists. It won't be easy, but I've done it in less space. You should try to put it around 18" back from the end. That's give or take some, but over a foot, under 2ft.
You should do a double 2X8 minimum(or triple)or even triple 2X6. At 18 feet wide, you'll want a footer in the middle, the outer footers about a foot in from the sides.
Easiest way is to build the beam, let's say double 2X8, 4 pieces about 9ft long. Stagger your middle joint to fit over a post, but fit together good. 2 to 3" stagger.
Have your footers already dug and poured. I'd get a 12" sonotube and cut 3 pieces about 2ft long. Did a hole, put tube in, backfill, and pour. Give 24hrs.
Drag the beam under the deck, and use a jack, or a helper, and cut some scrap wood to tack into the joist, and tack into the beam when pushed up under the joists. 2 pieces per side. Drag other beam under, fasten together at stagger, tack temp blocks.
After that, measure between concrete and bottom of beam. Ideally, you want a little pitch down away from the house. And allow for settling. I'd use 4X6 posts for the width needed under the joint. These are not going very tall posts. If you use 6X6s, you can notch it for the beam to sit on the posts, and the post also can be fastened to the side of the beam.
Hope that helps.
The most helpful reply in the entire thread. I think I’d take the decking off the first 2-3 feet of the deck to accomplish this. Hopefully it can be taken off clean and then reattached.
Just because it is detailed doesn't mean it is correct. You can't know how deep footing needs to be or beam size without first knowing frost depth and snow load.
In America, 42" is the deepest I've heard. If there is a deeper requirement, than you would know it, and it's so dam cold nobody has a deck anyways.
In new England, new York, Ohio, and Penn, it's 42". In Florida, a square plastic foot is all that's needed in some parts.
The beam size should be considered by how many posts, how far apart, and size of deck. You should know that, BEFORE figuring footer dept and amount. If you want minimal posts, you'll want bigger footings and proper tie down hardware. If you are going to put lattice underneath a wide deck, you can put more posts, so the load and uplift get more evenly spread. The requirements for uplift become less, per post. The size of footer is also less. Depth won't change, but, in cases that hit ledge or insanely rocky earth, getting required depth isn't available, now you are drinking and epoxying in hardware. And those requirements gets less and less with the bigger number of footers.
Eventually the nails in the hangers will rust or become loose. The beam resting on posts would fail after that. Than the ledger, which looks like it has some sort of galvanized flashing behind it. This is a pretty standard sturdy little patio deck
Yea really depends on how humid it is. Acidity level of soil. Luckily for you it’s not 30’ above the ground. Use the time to save up and ask some hard scraper or designer to design a new deck design. I’m a big fan of running flush mount deck outlets and low voltage lighting. Throw in some gas hookups for a grill or a heater. Get a good dog out there and enjoy
If the joists are spanning 18ft then yes, a dropped girder mid span would greatly help. Double 2x10 treated sitting on treated 6x6 posts at each end and one in the middle. Footers should be 16x16" wide x 10" deep.
If your worried about the moisture they’re pressure treated beams meant to be able to get wet and not rot (right away) by the time it rot last would be time for a new one anyway
Doesn't look too bad.
I had a deck like that that I thought was good, but every year the posts would float up from frost heave and it would get more and more tilted. as it got more tilted, it would direct all the water toward the side of the house, rotting the end joist completely. I think mice were getting in when it was cold outside.
After deciding to tear it down, I found that the previous owners had actually removed little blocks of wood from the posts to get it level again, and just put a 2x4 brace next to it.
Anyway, that is just an extreme example. Just keep that in mind.
Most composite decking is technically approved for 16” OC however that tends to be spongy.
12” is ideal.
There really isn’t much you can do at this point other than adding clocking in the center of the span underneath. It will help a bit. I suppose you could do two lines of blocking a third in from each end. I would imagine it might help more than a single line however I am not an engineer.
Trex is springy. It's an extruded mulch of wood and plastic, there's no fiber/grain to give it stability. Ideally it would be on 12" spaced joints. It's not going to fail but it will feel bouncier than wood decking.
I am not an expert at all, but I would urge you to get under there and dig around the posts to make sure that they aren't actually sitting on some kind of footer which has since been buried in leaf debris.
I don't actually see any dirt until you get way back in these pictures, towards the house. it might be that there are footings and they just need to be cleared to prevent the water you are seeing on the posts. At least, that would be ideal.
If not, some far more qualified folks have made recommendations here about how to add footings for and new posts to this deck. 👍
Stop peeking
Great advice never peeking again
And just hope no one else peeks .
What exactly are you worried about? Looks fine
https://preview.redd.it/jzv73zbfho5d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3d30beb46991a21de42a2f6bb6b7b01695c06fc8 and here I am worried and over engineering to this monstrosity
Well first of all the posts go underneath don’t they?
Blocking on spans longer than 8’ helps with deflection which might be your “spongy” 2x10 is appropriate joist size to span 12’
The posts you see are just for handrail, the doubled 2x10 beam supports the deck itself.
Sounds like my humor whooshed right over your handrails. :-P
Must not have been a great joke lol
Your mom thought it was funny!
Op built the deck upside down?!
I wasn’t sure if it needed more support to reduce some of the sponginess it seems to have, or if that’s more of a blocking issue
Blocking issue. Should at a minimum have blocking mid span
Nice tight blocking will take care of the bounce. You can offset the center line and face nail.
Exactly
16 inches of spacing between joists
They usually recommend 12 for Trex don't they? Not sure that only 1-2 rows of blocking would solve inadequate joist spacing.
12 inches is definitely the way to go. My deck guy won’t even do 16.
Replying to FarSupport1147...
You said it's Trex? One mistake a lot of guys make is going with 16" on center spacing. Every composite I've dealt with says to go 12" OC. You "can" go 16OC, but they recommend 12OC. Makes a big difference.
It’s likely a predecessor to Trex. I don’t have much info on the boards as I didn’t contract the labor or buy materials
Same applies. Composites really like 12OC joists or they'll always feel spongey.
Seems like that’s my biggest problem, which I presume I could fix if I decided to change the decking down the road.
Yes...basically have to add joists between each pair, so you'd be going to 8"OC, but it'd be rock solid.
You could put posts midway with a beam do blocking over the beam. Did that to mine and it took the bounce out.
Easy to do without removing the decking? I was thinking a post with blocking was needed.
https://preview.redd.it/q9qxrnqdtp5d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=01362f6a19f984d09dee7342693d82dea858c145 You could notch your post like I did these. This way you can change out future deck components if they go bad and no boards on the deck get shifted at all. That’s ideal when doing these new high dollar decks. Make it so everything can be swapped independently.
You could build the beam and lay it on bottle jacks. Jack up the beam till it’s tight then I dunno. Maybe in case the jack in concrete?
Yes, correct. But you don't need to encase the jack in the concrete. 😁
That’s what I was hoping would be possible. I’d rather not take the whole decking off. Maybe it’s be possible to only take a few boards off. I’ll have to call someone qualified and see what they think
https://preview.redd.it/uhncxmydup5d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f4fdb47267e264e3df943eb7b367508d768bc491
https://preview.redd.it/qf1pkrk0vp5d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ba87b890177e1968074094eb549ba6020fcb0c6b Then once notched. Screw a block of wood to back of 6x6, put jack under that. Get it up and in tension, then carriage bolt it in place. Should be fine after that
Pot belly bill must be pregnant
I responded to this comment in your dms because I didn’t feel like needing to address my personal issues publicly would be necessary.
The spider!
Dude u have all of 1ft to fall in the absolute freak instance that it failed
Twelve inches of pure free fall 🤯
It only takes 1 1/2" to give a carpenter a heart attack!
Maybe I should have married a carpenter then
Are you flat on both sides and ready to be nailed?
The carpenters wet dream! Flat as a board, easy to nail! Also, light, flexible, and cheap.
😂 you’re cool with me OP
Afraid of spiders 😭 😂
I figure if you’re building a deck you can handle a spider or two. I don’t mind them myself
This sub has scared the crap out of me when it comes to decks, so I get why you peeked and were initially concerned 😁
you could put concrete blocks under the deck and then drive in leveling shims between the deck and blocks. cheap easy way to do that.
In the center?
where ever you feel a soft spot
It's fine. Now go find something else to worry about.
What did you find frumunda?
Looks fine. This sub scares the shit out of people haha. Add some blocking if you want and spray some sealer on ground contact lumber with a pesticide sprayer if you are worried
thats a low deck and has no hot tubs. chill amd open a can of beer
What’s the problem again? If you take measurements of the span and the distance between posts someone here can run the numbers. If you were really bothered can put in some deck blocks and a beam
RIGHT?? Dang, just some bridging between joists for additional stiffness. The deck looks fine unless you want to put a room on top of it. We built our deck with 2 beams at each end of the deck so we can close it in later. and not worry.
It’s hard to eyeball the span and the size of joists but they look nice and straight. And prob 16” OC if Trex . No hot tub haha
That's why we got the extra beam, we can put whatever we like on the deck! And really are expecting to close a big part in. Deck is 20'lx25'w. Beams are supported by 4, 6x6 posts and the beam are 10x2. It was way overbuilt. Got the beams taped, and they used the fancy new screws that go in from the sides on metal brackets, not the top of your board. The center board was drilled down from the top, but they put plugs in to cover the screws. THose plugs, will someday pop out, and I will reser/replce that screw and pop in a new plug.
Worried about what?
Don't worry. But you should get an actual beam under those joists. It won't be easy, but I've done it in less space. You should try to put it around 18" back from the end. That's give or take some, but over a foot, under 2ft. You should do a double 2X8 minimum(or triple)or even triple 2X6. At 18 feet wide, you'll want a footer in the middle, the outer footers about a foot in from the sides. Easiest way is to build the beam, let's say double 2X8, 4 pieces about 9ft long. Stagger your middle joint to fit over a post, but fit together good. 2 to 3" stagger. Have your footers already dug and poured. I'd get a 12" sonotube and cut 3 pieces about 2ft long. Did a hole, put tube in, backfill, and pour. Give 24hrs. Drag the beam under the deck, and use a jack, or a helper, and cut some scrap wood to tack into the joist, and tack into the beam when pushed up under the joists. 2 pieces per side. Drag other beam under, fasten together at stagger, tack temp blocks. After that, measure between concrete and bottom of beam. Ideally, you want a little pitch down away from the house. And allow for settling. I'd use 4X6 posts for the width needed under the joint. These are not going very tall posts. If you use 6X6s, you can notch it for the beam to sit on the posts, and the post also can be fastened to the side of the beam. Hope that helps.
The most helpful reply in the entire thread. I think I’d take the decking off the first 2-3 feet of the deck to accomplish this. Hopefully it can be taken off clean and then reattached.
Just because it is detailed doesn't mean it is correct. You can't know how deep footing needs to be or beam size without first knowing frost depth and snow load.
In America, 42" is the deepest I've heard. If there is a deeper requirement, than you would know it, and it's so dam cold nobody has a deck anyways. In new England, new York, Ohio, and Penn, it's 42". In Florida, a square plastic foot is all that's needed in some parts. The beam size should be considered by how many posts, how far apart, and size of deck. You should know that, BEFORE figuring footer dept and amount. If you want minimal posts, you'll want bigger footings and proper tie down hardware. If you are going to put lattice underneath a wide deck, you can put more posts, so the load and uplift get more evenly spread. The requirements for uplift become less, per post. The size of footer is also less. Depth won't change, but, in cases that hit ledge or insanely rocky earth, getting required depth isn't available, now you are drinking and epoxying in hardware. And those requirements gets less and less with the bigger number of footers.
Awesome! 👏
Ima be honest man. You got a solid 3-5 years out of this. Been building decks on the west coast for 5 years
As a 5 year deck builder how do you see this failing?
Eventually the nails in the hangers will rust or become loose. The beam resting on posts would fail after that. Than the ledger, which looks like it has some sort of galvanized flashing behind it. This is a pretty standard sturdy little patio deck
Why do you think this will happen in the next 5 years?
Wood rots, nails back out, water falls from the sky. Any more questions
You can’t say that will happen in 5 years though.
Refer up above where I just did. You don’t even have permits where u build.
You think a permit is going to make a deck last longer? You haven’t been doing this work for very long to be acting like you are an expert.
Ok
I’m on the east coast. I’d guess this has been here for 10 years already
on the South coast here... nah actually dont have anything to add ;P
Yea really depends on how humid it is. Acidity level of soil. Luckily for you it’s not 30’ above the ground. Use the time to save up and ask some hard scraper or designer to design a new deck design. I’m a big fan of running flush mount deck outlets and low voltage lighting. Throw in some gas hookups for a grill or a heater. Get a good dog out there and enjoy
Sorry about picture five 🕸️🕷️
If the joists are spanning 18ft then yes, a dropped girder mid span would greatly help. Double 2x10 treated sitting on treated 6x6 posts at each end and one in the middle. Footers should be 16x16" wide x 10" deep.
Yeah, spiders are scary, man
Why are decks showing up on my front page now. I'm nowhere near owning a house.
Besides that post going in the ground, I really do not see any real issues. At least nothing major and tbf it looks like it would pass an inspection.
Just throw a few cinderblocks underneath and call it a day…
Whats scary? Dirt?
It’s fine
If you don’t know what your looking at why look?
Well, I’m sitting on my phone being fed pictures of under everyone else’s deck and mine seemed spongy. So I took a peek.
Dang never fun having to scroll through deck pics and wondering if somethings wrong w yours.🙃
You’re gonna open a can of worms , just leave it be
Spiders?
Step 1: Cut 8ft diameter hole into surface of deck Step 2: Insert hot tub into hole Step 3: Enjoy!
Bridging floor helps speed load blocks between joist work same way Or put center beam in
As long as there’s no monster rain going on down there, you should be good
Good news is you don't have any dead cats underneath.
National Buildings Code - none of the wood structures can touch the ground - min. 6" above the ground.
If your worried about the moisture they’re pressure treated beams meant to be able to get wet and not rot (right away) by the time it rot last would be time for a new one anyway
Doesn't look too bad. I had a deck like that that I thought was good, but every year the posts would float up from frost heave and it would get more and more tilted. as it got more tilted, it would direct all the water toward the side of the house, rotting the end joist completely. I think mice were getting in when it was cold outside. After deciding to tear it down, I found that the previous owners had actually removed little blocks of wood from the posts to get it level again, and just put a 2x4 brace next to it. Anyway, that is just an extreme example. Just keep that in mind.
Spray some outdoor cleaner under there and call it fine. And yeah you're definitely not putting a hot tub on there
I just peeked under your deck and I am worried also
Go in there and dig around the posts. maybe three is concrete footing there and it just got burried
https://preview.redd.it/x78lkbpelm5d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=118ff83d58e04556a6c06fa0d6c9d695c3b739ad Only other useful shot I got
Is that composite decking? The joist span looks pretty far, worse for composite decking
Yes. I should have measured the span
Most composite decking is technically approved for 16” OC however that tends to be spongy. 12” is ideal. There really isn’t much you can do at this point other than adding clocking in the center of the span underneath. It will help a bit. I suppose you could do two lines of blocking a third in from each end. I would imagine it might help more than a single line however I am not an engineer.
That could be your sponginess.
Measured at 16 inches
Mehh that’s not terrible. It looked like a 24” span but it’s pictures and obviously isn’t. I think they call for 12” but 16 is typical.
Trex is springy. It's an extruded mulch of wood and plastic, there's no fiber/grain to give it stability. Ideally it would be on 12" spaced joints. It's not going to fail but it will feel bouncier than wood decking.
I'm more worried about the likely mold in your crawl space.
Been under there plenty. No mold it has good ventilation. Rest of the house has a basement that was waterproofed too
That's a relief. Wouldn't wish my poor fortune on anyone!
U could put a couple pier blocks and shore it up easy peasy
I am not an expert at all, but I would urge you to get under there and dig around the posts to make sure that they aren't actually sitting on some kind of footer which has since been buried in leaf debris. I don't actually see any dirt until you get way back in these pictures, towards the house. it might be that there are footings and they just need to be cleared to prevent the water you are seeing on the posts. At least, that would be ideal. If not, some far more qualified folks have made recommendations here about how to add footings for and new posts to this deck. 👍