The Decking Continues on a Curve

Last month we started in on laying the decking by completing the landing and putting in the first three lengths across the deck proper. For the first time since we built the house we could now walk out the back door and across the yard without walking on the ground, or worse, hopping over floor joists!

The next challenge is to deal with a curve. The artist in me had enough of straight lines so I had decided from the outset to join the deck into the paving using a curve. 

Below is the curve in question.

The Curve in Question

So when Stefan laid the paving for me I deliberately asked him to leave the paving unfinished at the bottom, as from the very start I knew it was going to be a tricky prospect getting the decking to line up with the paving. 

First up though I joined the ends of the joists together using noggins cut to size and then screwed into the end of the joists. This was to provide a stable edge for the decking.

The photo below shows where the paving stops.

Meeting up with the paving

I'd designed the whole frame and footings with this curve in mind so hopefully this should be a straightforward process. First step per below is to lay the timber!

Once the timber is down it starts to make sense

Once the timber was down I had to figure out how to get the curve, which ended up being a lot easier than I thought it would be!

I used what's called an electricians cable strap, made from "yellow tongue" which is basically just a long yellow thick plastic strap. An electrician will use it to feed cable up a wall by sending the strap up the wall, then tying the cable to the end and pulling it back down through the wall, pulling the cable along with it.

Anyway, all I did was lay this plastic strap edgewise along the timber and clipped it to each end of the curve, adjusting it until I got a nice even curve. All that was then required was to run a pencil along and voilà, the curve was marked down! I then got a jigsaw blade and cut it down (so it wouldn't hit the concrete under the boards) and then ran it along the line.

As you can see below there's now a lovely curve.

One curve completed!

Now that the curve is done I need to get Stefan back in to finish up the paving!

Time to add in the missing paving

Below shows the completed curve with the paving done. As it turned out, Stefan actually had to rip up the old paving and re-lay it to match up with the end of the deck. So in the end all that advanced planning ended up for nought.

Looking ahead below, you can see the end result and it was worth the mucking around!

Paving completed!

So whilst all this curving was going on, I continued laying the decking.

Meanwhile the decking continues to progress

As you can see below I started to move back around the corner to complete the top right section of the decking towards the back gate.

This stuff is so easy to lay

The decking continued to go down fast and easy and my $400 compressor was holding up well to the task. Below shows the approach up to the back gate. The excess which you can see in the right is so minimal with the Deck Master system, because I can pick and choose the timber I want to use and I can make the but join anywhere on the deck without the need for putting it over a joist.

Stretching around the corner 

As shown below I'm almost all the way across, and I pretty much laid this in a day.

Almost all the way across now

Next post we'll finish off the top decking and start in on the sides and the steps.

Deck Building. Choosing the Decking Material

Wow that last post was really popular, you guys must really like stairs! Well now that all the framing is completed it's time to select and lay the timber on the frame. If you hadn't picked this up in earlier posts, this is deck number four for me, and it will also be the fourth different type of deck fastener I'll be trying. Here's a bit of history.

1. The eighties. Flock of Seagulls was still popular, and I started deck number one. The timber used was 70 x 19 treated pine fastened with galvanised nails and a hammer. The old fashioned way! Great workout for the biceps. Digital cameras didn't exist yet sorry.
2. The nineties. Tal Bachman was singing She's So High, and deck number two below was built using 70 x 19 Merbau fastened with a Paslode nail gun. Forgive me I knew not how. The result was pleasing though as you can see below.

Deck Number 2

3. The late noughties. Lady Gaga was breaking out and most recently on this house I built deck number 3, the side deck using 90 x 19 Merbau fastened with Deck-Max Original biscuits which you've already read about. 

For the next deck I wanted to keep the "nail free" look of deck number 3 but didn't want the hassle and time it takes to use a biscuit cutter solution like Deck-Max Original. I investigated a few options available in Australia.

• Archideck. Very similar to Deck-Max Original. Too time consuming for such a large deck
• Camo Fasteners. Relies on a template tool to pilot the drilling of the screws into the edge of the decking timber. Again it seemed too time consuming for a large deck
• Deck-Max. Although the last deck seemed to take FOREVER to complete using Deck-Max Original biscuits, they so have another product called the Deck-Max Pro biscuit. This relies on purchasing their pre-engineered profiled decking timber with a groove cut into the sides of each board to accept the Pro biscuit. This removes the time-consuming process of cutting the biscuit slots into the timber
• Deck Master. This is an interesting product. It uses a combined approach with pre-engineered timber like Deck-Max, fixed using a different type of Tiger Claw fastener (called a TC-G, for grooved boards, as opposed to the one I mentioned above which is the TC-1), along with Deck Bone "end matched" but joiners, a "scrail" gun to fix down the fittings, and rubber mats to run along the top of the joists under the decking.

So for me it came down to two choices; Deck-Max Pro or Deck Master, as most of the others were going to be too time consuming for a deck this big. Not saying that they don't have their place, but for a substantial deck like this one they're just not suitable. 

After researching into it and talking with both companies, as well as some personal recommendations, I selected the Deck Master system. This was for a couple of reasons:

• Cost - Deck-Max Pro was going to cost nearly $1000 more in materials than Deck Master
• End Matching - End Matching allows you to join boards without needing to meet over the top of a joist which saves a heap by reducing scrap offcuts. However to get the end matching for Deck-Max Pro I needed to purchase their 110mm boards, and I had my mind set on 90mm to match the side deck
• Speed - Speaking with the suppliers, and just looking at the videos, I could tell that Deck Master was going to be quicker than Deck-Max Pro to install. However I was going to need to buy a compressor, but you can never have too many tools!
• Joist Protection - Deck Master includes rubber joist flashing to protect the joists, which fits in nicely with the Protectadeck that I have put across the bearers
• Finish - All the timber arrives pre-coated with Feast Watson decking oil

The key to Deck Master system is the Tiger Claw fastener and the Scrail Gun shown below. The combination of these two things make it incredibly quick to lay decking.

DeckMaster Scrail Gun (image courtesy DeckMaster)

A Tiger Claw fastener, grrrr  (image courtesy DeckMaster)

So having made my mind up I put the order in with my local supplier Greenhill Timbers, and a week later everything turned up on site having been trucked down to Victoria from Queensland. The kit supplies everything you need to complete the project with all the joiners, fasteners, flashing, screws, connectors, drill bits, timber etc. The supplied scrail gun even comes with safety glasses!

Delivery Day! All the way from Queensland via Thomastown

DeckMaster Profiled Timber (image courtesy DeckMaster)

Now let's talk timber, as the timber they supplied was absolutely beautiful! I have never seen more straighter lengths of in my life, all finished and coated with F&W ready to be laid. The lengths supplied were spot on too, with a good selection of longs, mediums and not too many shorts. This was seriously good stuff. The timber is listed as 90x19 however owing to the profiling process to cut the grooves it's a little slimmer by a few mm on each side, but not that you'd notice.

The Scrail gun is the key to this system. Once the rubber flashing is laid (I just laid it down with galvanised staples) you lay the decking board down, then load the TC-G joiner into the front of the gun (after filling it with a row of scrails of course), put your foot onto the timber, push the edge of the joiner into the groove of the receiving board while laying the gun flat on top of the joist, and then pull the trigger. 

BANG! Job done. Then you work your way down the length of the board. Fit joiner, position, BANG! Fit joiner, position, BANG! Fit joiner, position, BANG! etc. etc. Less than a minute later you'll have a 6m length fitted. This system is unbelievably super quick.

Positioning and firing the gun (image courtesy DeckMaster)

Before laying any timber I had to first haul it from the driveway around the back. Per below I stacked it on the far side of the frame away from the work face.

A good selection of lengths provided

There was so much timber (70 sqm) I had to split it up and sort. Shorts and mediums I stacked on the frame, and the really long ones around the side of the house as you can see through the gate below.

Not enough room on the coal face, so the longer sticks are around the side of the house

Now I had the tools, the timber, and the know-how, it was time to get to work and start laying some decking. To start with I wanted to "picture frame" the landing, so to achieve this, I HAD TO GO AND BUY SOME TIMBER, LOL!

The timber supplied by Deck Master is profiled with a groove on all sides, so if you have a stair nose to show and you don't want a groove you need to have some standard decking timber. I fixed the frame border down using a combination of Deck-Max Wood Plugs and the TCG Fasteners. For the fastener side I used my biscuit cutter to cut the slots in the board that the Fasteners would hook into. 

Because this is the top step, when I cut and fixed the boards I had to remember to leave a 20mm overhang on the nose of the step, so I could slip the boards underneath on the riser face later. Below shows the border frame fitted.

Framing up the landing

I mitred the corners pretty closely, but it's all under cover so I really wasn't concerned about weathering or lifting of the joins. Below shows the landing at the halfway point.

Half a landing. At least we can walk out the door now!

Earlier I wrote about that Deck Master comes with a rubber underlay to goes along the top of joists, however when I built the frame for the landing I wasn't thinking there was going to be anything but a deck board. The rubber underlay adds another 3mm to the height and I just hadn't allowed for that when I made the frame and that extra 3mm was going to mean that the door wouldn't open! To get around this I had to lay the decking on the landing without the rubber underlay. However there's a trick to this. 

The joiner heights are set based on the rubber underlay being there, so if you don't put it down, the boards don't lay flat and "undulate" with the back side being higher than the front side. I learnt this from experience! I spoke to Deck Master (via Facebook) and they were really helpful. To fix this you need to knock down the front side of the connector 3mm with a hammer, so that the board lays flat when inserted onto the connector. Below shows the completed landing.

Landing has been decked, we can walk out the door!

So lesson learnt, I made pretty quick work of laying the decking on the landing. To finish off the final board I had to rip one to fit, and then fixed it in with screws and the Deck-Max wood plugs. Easy done.

Decking is spreading across the frame

Once the landing was finished (and yes, we could walk out the door now!) I started in on the deck itself. As with any deck, the first board is the most important, and has to be the bestest, straightest, longest one you have, and it has to be laid as straight as possible. All the boards that follow are going to be based on that one board alone. Lucky for me I had a nice straight house to lay it up against!

In the Deck Master system the first board is attached using what are called Top Fix Starter Clips. There's a box of them provided, and they are C shaped clips that are screwed into the top of the joist, and the timber slot fits into the top of the C clip and holds it in place as shown in the Deck Master photo to the right. One box should be enough to do any deck as you only really use them on the first board

Below you can see the first 4 boards laid (OK well 3 and a half anyway) and for the first time ever we can walk across the back yard without joist hopping! What an achievement, one small step for me, and a giant leap for the entire family!

The first narrow path across

Now those four boards, once I had fixed the starter clips in place, took me less than 10 minutes on my own to lay down. It's amazingly quick to use. 

When it comes to butt joins, I have never seen tighter joins. The DeckBone clips come in pairs and all you do is fix one clip on the inside, put in the next butt joined piece of timber, give it a bit of a love tap on the end with a rubber mallet, then fit the outside clip. Job done. No need for offcuts, no need to line up over a joist. 

As you can see below the joints created are super-tight and virtually seamless.

Nice tight joins

So now where on our way and the decking is going down fast! 
Next post we'll look at how it progresses with some of the trickier bits and pieces.

Deck Building. Building a flight of stairs

Now that I have become the stair master by building the two step wraparound stairs on the back landing, I now have to undertake the far longer set of stairs that run from the deck down to the lawn area. This is my first try at a full set of stairs so it's really all new to me. There's a really good instruction on stair building over at instructibles.com which was great for a newbie like me.

The first thing required is to figure out the rise and the run of the slope that the steps are to go down. The rise of a flight is the vertical distance between the floors or landings connected by the flight. The individual rise is the vertical measurement from top of tread to top of tread. The run is the horizontal distance covered by the entire staircase, or technically the distance from the trimmer face to the front of the first steps nosing. Using a long piece of straight timber clamped to the existing joists, and a plumb bob and tape measure, I obtained the rise and run.

With this data in hand I then headed over to the stair calculator web site and plugged the measurements into the X and Y fields. I then start playing around with the number of steps and the width of the stinger, until I am happy with the height of the step and depth of the tread, and I then have the measurements for the required stringers.

Using these dimensions and a large framing square with stair gauges, I draw out the stair pattern on the stringer just like the photo below.

Once you have the stringer marked out you can attack it with a combination of a circular saw to do the long cuts and a jigsaw the finish the corners. Be as accurate as possible with the first stringer as it will become the template for the rest of them to follow. In my case I need five stringers.

MEASURE TWICE, CUT ONCE is the old carpenters rule of thumb. Stick to it.

Before I can lay any kind of woodwork in I need to create a concrete pad for the bottom step to attach to. Per the photo below, once I had cut the first stringer cut I used that to help measure and position the form for the pad.

Measuring up for the form

With a pair of stringers cut, I positioned them on the outside and clamped them against the joists to hold them in place, then measured and levelled everything before mixing and pouring the concrete for the pad.

Checking and preparing for concrete

Once the concrete was cured and the form removed, I then clamped on four stringers just to make sure I hadn't missed anything! As you can see below, it all came out level.

Checking everything for level

The picture below shows all the stringers attached and in place, I bolted the stringers to the concrete pad using galvanised steel L brackets with Loxins to go into the concrete, and diagonally set coach bolts through the stringer into the bracket.

All stingers attached and bolted in place.

To attach the top of the stringers to the deck I used exactly the same method I utilised to attach the small two step stringers to the landing in my previous post, by boxing them in. Below shows all the stringer top steps locked in tight between the noggin and front ledger.

Top of stringers boxed in screwed down

So that was it! Per the photo below the entire deck frame was now finished (or so I thought at the time!) and ready for the council building inspector to give it the big tick!

Entire deck frame completed and ready for the council engineer's inspection

So I booked in the inspection and the engineer came over to have a look. He's actually quite a nice guy who is, after all, only looking after the safety of myself and my BBQ guests! There was a couple of things he wasn't happy with in the frame:

1. The width of the open string on the landing steps he felt was a little too narrow and asked that they be in filled underneath to support the step (see my previous post on building the landing)
2. The stringers were too long a run to go unsupported. Even though they were within code, he felt there was going to be too much flex in the steps and that I should underpin them in the middle with a bearer to support them.
3. Owing to the length of the stinger, he wanted to see the top connection into the noggin reinforced with some builders strapping to support them.

They were all worthwhile observations that I happily agreed to rectify! I was at last getting some value out of a local council service! Building is so much easier to deal with than planning (you can catch up on my council planning nightmare post here).

So I got to work, and using the pick and post hole digger, started in on digging post holes for posts to support the new bearer. Below shows where they will go in.

And here I was thinking I was done digging bloody holes!

Because everything was already in place and I was loath to dissemble, I used a slightly different method of putting in the bearer. Normally I would concrete in the posts, let it set, then attach the bearer etc. 

In this instance I dropped the posts into the empty holes, passed through the bearer and bolted it onto the posts. I then clamped the whole assembly to the underside of the stringers where I had cut a notch to accept the top of the bearer. Once this was all in place I then poured the concrete into the holes.

Once the concrete was set I then just removed the clamps and screwed the stringers into the bearer. Job done!

Completed supporting bearer in place

Below is a closer view of the bearer notched into the bottom of the stringer and screwed in place.

Notched stringer screwed into the bearer

The whole assembly was now really, really, really solid as a rock. Not an ounce of bounce!

The post bone connects to the, bearer bone, the bearer bone connects to the, stringer bone

The last thing required was to add the builders strapping to the underside of the top of the stringer and up the back of the noggin that holds the stair assembly in place. 

Trust me it wasn't an easy exercise, as I wasn't prepared to disassemble everything to attach the strapping to the bottom of the stringer. Some judicious digging was required so I could get a hammer in at the right angle to knock in the galvanised clouts!

Stringers strapped in nice and tight!

So the stair frame was now completed to the satisfaction of the council, and myself. After sending off the photos of the extra work the council was happy to sign off the frame stage of the deck. Happy days!

The finished stair frame signed off!

Next up we get to into selecting and laying the decking boards!
If you want to jump ahead to finishing up the stairs you can have a look here.

Deck building. Preparing for the landing!

The frame for the main section of the deck is completed which overall was a reasonably straight forward affair, so now it's time to work on the trickier parts! Please put your chair in the upright position and ensure that your tray-table is securely stowed as we prepare for the landing.

To join the deck to the back door there's a landing required, and two steps from the landing down to the main deck proper. The steps at the front protrude 60 cm out past the line of the house and wrap around providing steps on three sides with the deck boards mitre joined on the corners. The steps to the side are straight steps within the line of the house.

The plan below shows the posts, bearers and joist locations.

Please put your tray table into the upright position and prepare for landing!

The bearers, like the main deck, are made up of dual 90 x 45 mm MGP10 treated pine nailed together. The 100 x 100 mm treated pine posts were fixed to the concrete using Pryda bolt-down post anchors. Mounting and assembly was pretty straight forward.

Bearers in place

Once the bearers were complete, the 90 x 45 mm MGP10 treated pine joists were laid across them. For the first time in 8 years we could now walk out the back door without the BIG step!

Joists laid

The final part of the joist assembly was to fix a joist across the front with 90 mm treated pine screws, to which the step stringers will be attached (see below).

To calculate the stringers I used the stair calculator function from the Russian based 'construction calculator' site (check out my resource page for this and other on-line tools) to get the dimensions of the stringer, and from this I created a cardboard template which I used to mark out onto the timber the stingers to be cut. To fix the stringer to the deck I added an extra cut of 90 x 45 mm into the front of the top step, so that it can slot in under the front joist.

In the picture below you can see I have clamped three of them to the front joists to check for size and position.

Testing the steps

To fix the stair stringers to the deck a 'noggin' needs to be added behind the end of the stringer to hold it in place against the front joist.

Step 1 mark it up. The noggin fits between the joists, so using the cut stringer place it against one side of the joist and mark the back end of the stringer on the joist, repeat on the other side. This is where the front edge of the noggin needs to line up on the joists.

Step 2 make the noggin. I used a piece of 90 x 45 mm MGP10 treated pine (aka joists offcuts!) and a pair of joist hangers to fit and hold the noggin between the joists. 

Step 3 slip in the stringer. Slide in the top of the stringer up and in between the noggin and the front joist, lining it up with the joist from the bottom level

Step 4 screw it all in. Get a small level and make sure everything is plumb, then secure the stringer in place with 110 mm screws through the front joist and the back noggin into the stringer. Lastly secure the bottom of the step by screwing the stringer bottom at an angle into the bottom joist.

Below shows the first step stringer mounted and secured.

First step in place

Repeat the process for each step stringer until you have one lined up with every bottom joist. Now when it comes to corners things get a little tricky. 

The corners need to have a double stringer put in place, so you have somewhere the attach the ends of the decking boards on either side of the step. The ends of the stringers also need to fit in the same corner spot as all the other stringers on the corner, and things can get a little cramped. 

To get around this I made the top of the assembled corner stringer short on top (as only the step itself needs to support weight) so it could fit in. I then relied on a noggins placed underneath the stringer, between the bottom joists, to hold the stringer in place and support the step. By doing this I didn't have to worry about supporting it at the top like the other straight stringers.

Below you can see the assembled corner.

These corners are pretty tricky!

Below is a close look at the assembled corner and the two noggins I added in underneath to support the step at the front and rear. The corner stringer was is screwed into the joists and the noggins to hold everything nice and secure.

It's a tight squeeze to fit it all in

Below is the progress in assembling the stairs.

The landing is taking shape

Below shows the final assembled front step frame. Here you can see the noggins that support the corner step on the other end. All this work will allow the steps to wrap around and have nice mitred joins on the corners.

Front steps frame completed!

For the side steps there were no joists to support the bottom of the stringers, so I used Klevaklip adjustable joist supports. These are a great invention for mounting 45 mm timber into a concrete base, and can be used where you are building over concrete and don't have enough clearance for a bearer. You fix the base plate into the concrete with two bolts of sufficient length protruding, and then fit the support bracket to the bolts using a set of nuts and washers to hold them at the required height. This makes setting the height of the support fully adjustable.

The stringers were fitted to the deck using the same method as the front steps, by boxing in the top rear of the stringer. Below you can see I have clamped up the stringers to the front joist so I can set the height needed for the supports.

Fitting in the side steps

Below is the completed side step. I had to change the cut into the step and move it back about an inch into the rise because of the narrow width back to the next joist.

Side steps completed

Below is the completed landing frame and steps.

Landing completed

The council inspector was overall pretty happy with the landing frame, but thought that the "throat" of the stringer looked a little narrow, so asked me to infill behind the stringer to support the step. It wasn't a bad suggestion and reasonably easy to achieve, so I reused the offcuts from the steps to make the fillers up. 

Measuring up the angle of the back of the stringer I cut the fillers and glued them between the underside of the stringer and the joist, and secured them in with 90 mm screws. 

Below is the completed stringers with the supports fitted.

In-fills to make the Council building inspector happy

Grabbing a couple of pieces of decking boards I can see that everything is squared off and the decking boards will wrap around the corners nicely.

Checking the square of the mitre joins

Finally we can now walk out of the back door and onto the landing, albeit across the joists! Next up is to construct the frame for the much longer set of stairs that run from the top of the deck down to the lawn area.

Lucky I am now the stair master!