New Decks

After notifying the general contractor that I now had made decisions and have a design, he brought his carpenter out to survey and discuss the deck and fences. I wanted to be clear that I had a specific vision in mind, rather than getting some generic deck solution, so based on that we left off that I would produce some detailed blueprints for my design. Not wanting to be the bottleneck in moving this along, I then spent the next day solid working on translating then 3D model into some 2D, easier to read blueprints and sent them along. I also provided the 3D renderings (above) to help visualize things as well as the following blueprints.

After delivering the blueprints to the general contractor and going over the details, the general contractor brought up the suggestion of my doing the privacy fence (what I later refer to as the "deck screen"). His reason was that he would have to get a very expensive "trim" guy to do this work. This suggestion was actually perfect for me. I had only put that as work for the contractors to do because I thought it might be too complicated to coordinate partial work on this. Thus, I agreed to this right away and began planning the work. You can read more about this work on the Deck Screen Project Page

The first day of contractor work was just about fixing the drainage problems since the carpenters were not available until the next day. The drainage solution consisted of burying a couple 4 inch pipe and having the gutter downspouts and two ground surface intakes feeding into them. Unfortunately, the burying of the pipes first done would have to be undone and dug deeper, but that was not realized until a week later when the carpenters began to think about the details for the new section fo deck that was to be above where the drain pipes were.

Another part of the drainage improvements was to add a new downspout to a very long gutter run I have along the back. This would tie into one of the pipes, whilem the other, existing downspout would feed directly inot the other pipe. This extra downspout wound up being among the last things add, which was a few week after the project began.

With the drain pipes later needing to be buried even deeper so there was room for the deck and its support structure, there was a need to be able to access the drain intakes since they need to be cleaned periodically to prevent debris build-up. This was all very much and on-the-fly solution, but the carpenters came up with a simple solution. They just made a small board with a finger hole in it. Since there are two intakes, there are two of these boards on the deck.

These two new, underground drain pipes would run under the deck and out toward the front of my property, since that is where the water current flows. I wanted to be extra sure that I did not change the main flow direction of the water as this could just result in new problems for my downstream neighbor. I suspect that part of the drainage problem I have is due to changes people have done to their property further upstream.

About 2 months after the main deck work was completed we had a rain storm that dumped about 4 inches in a single hour. This was the type of event that was a true test if things had improved, and everything seemed to work as planned. This also afforded me to get some pictures of the fast moving river that forms in my backyard when a heavy rain occurs. Note that the fence where the water exits the deck was deliberately a co-uple inches off the ground to allow the water to flow out to the front and off to the storm sewer nearby.

On Day 2 of the contractor work, the carpenters showed up and began demolition of the fences and the existing deck boards. In all, the following things needed to be dismantled:

• side fence;
• front-facing fence;
• southeast deck boards;
• northeast deck boards; and
• back, north deck.

At this point, it was not clear how much of the existing deck structure was salvagable, so the deckboards were removed first so the carpenters could acess the situation. Either way, there were at least two new sections of deck structure needed where no decks were before:

• span between northeast and southeast deck; and
• new deck along back of house (northwest deck).

It turned out that a good amount of the existing deck structure could be used, though there needed to be adjustments for a few rotted pieces and to accomodate trees that were now much larger than when the decks were first built.

The side fence we had pretty much crumbled and was mostly being held up by some vines. My neighbor and I had discussed replacing this a few years before, but that went nowhere. I wanted to replace the wooden posts with metal posts so that it would be easier to replace the fence the next time it rotted away. The old fence curiously took a right hand turn near where my pool equipment was, toward my property and then resumed its run about 12 inches closer to my house. The plat map for my property shows this side border to be a straight line, so it must be that someone (me or my neighbor) has some property on the wrong side of the fence. I was not thinking about this when the fence was going up and they seemed to install the new fence in a single straight line. The end result was that I gained 12 inches around my pool equipment area. My best guess from measurements and looking at the plat map is that this property probably always was mine, so I didn't worry too much about it. My neighbor was pretty easygoing about it as well, so thankfully no unnecessary dispute arose. The contractor had to add a couple extra boards to the little fence I have around the pool equipment.

The fence also intersected a tree toward the back of my property, which used to be entirely on my side of the fence. Thus, I might have lost some area near the back, so maybe it al-l evened out. This tree did cause the contractors some temporary problems until they figured out a funky way to do the fence structure around it.

We had an outdoor shower, which had hot and cold water: very nice. A couple years ago, it sprung a leak somewhere, so we were afraid to use it for fear of water getting into the wall. The shower is located between the northeast and southeast decks, which is the area where I was going to span with a new deck structure. The existing shower head was a bnit low and now with raising the level up to the decks, the current shower height would not due. Opening the wall to raise the shower would serve the double purpose of figuring out what was causing the leak. It turned out to be a burst pipe, which must have happened during one of the winter freezes. Luckily, this burst was after the valve, so it only leaked when you used it.

The main complexity was that the wall that the shower was on was a masony wall. This mean an expensive work to rebuild the wall. THe other side of the wall inside the house is where the oven is, so that was not easily accessible either. There was not much choice here, and I really liked having the shower, especially after doing some dirty yard work.

The existing decks had three trees that protruded through the deck surface. Two of them are very nice live oak trees of significant size. I did not want to remove them, and it would have required a city permit given their diameters. k However, the third tree was a big undesirable. It was small and took a hard turn toward horizontal only 5 feet off the ground. It went over the driveway and provided very little in the way of shade. Additionally, since this was near where you exit the side of the house, it was mighty inconvenient as far as being an obstacle and breaking up what would otherwise be a nice deck space. Thus, it had no redeeming values and would be removed.

I was somewhat dissapointed that the tree was not cut further down, but I guess due to the deck frame and the concrete patio next to it, getting a chainsaw in there was a bit tricky. The general contractor did drill some holes in it and treat it with chemicals, but since the deck soon covered it, I do not really know whether this was effective or not. I was also a little afraid of the chemicals affecting the nearby tree.

Many years ago, I had to do a lot of work cutting the deck boards and adjusting the deck frame due to the two large trees having grown so much. The tree was growing deformed due to it hitting the deck. This was neither good for the tree, nor good for the deck. Since that time, the tree have not stopped growing, so the frame needed to be adjusted yet again, and with this new deck, it was the ideal time to give the trees more room to breath. My original plan had j9ust a large square cutout for the trees, since I figured that wo-uld simplify the cuts the carpenters had to make. Turns out that without asking, they did a much more elegant solution for the trees.

The existing front facing fence separates the driveway from the backyard and part of it is adjacent to the decks. The fence itself was in good shape, but the gate on the fence was problematic due to the support posts being very loose. Additionally, if or when the utility company needs to replace the pole in my backyard, the gate is not wide enough to accomodate their machinery. They technically do not have an easement other than along the back of the property, but if they did that, my neighbors would have a lot of grief. It would be much easier to access this from my backyard. Thus, with all these considerations, I decided to replace the entire fence and add a double gate that would allow wider access.

The city codes do not allow a fence higher than 6 feet, but this only pertains to along the property line. Since I wanted the deck to have a 5 foot fence for privacy reasons, and since the deck is a couple feet off the ground, from the front, the fence would be over 6 feet high.

The previous fence was painted the same color tan as the trim on our house and there was some debate whether we should paint the new fence the same way. We did decide to paint it, though it was over two months later before we finally got around to painting it. This was just a low priority given all the other deck-related projects going on at the time. For some reason, we had a brand new 5 gallon bucket of this tan paint. It had been sitting in the garage for probably 6 or more years. I was not sure whether we could use it, but after about 45 minutes of mixing it with a power drill attachment, I was about to coax it back to a form that resembled paint.

The demolition and some preliminary side fence work were the first things the carpenters worked/ Once they were ready to begin work on the deck proper and started thinking about the structure of it, they told mem it was not possible to have all the decks at the same level as I had hoped. I did not like stairs, since they are a trip hazard and they reduce or limit the options for utilizing the space. The decks are adjacent to some concrete slabs that more or less are extension of the deck. The concrete slabs (properly) are not level in any direction, since they are contoured to allow drainage away from the house. Additionally, the southeast and northeast decks that I wanted to add a span between were not the same level. Mix all this uneveness together, and they said it would not be possible to have a single level deck.

I spent 20 minutes mostly just thinking about how the design would have to change to account for this. I cannot say I was surprised to arrive at such an obstacle, something like this was inevitable. What was most stressful was my having to come up with a solution and make a decision on the spot. Failure to do so and the carpenters would have nothing to do and I had to make this decision in the presence of the carpenters to make sure any proposal was feasible. I finally came to the conclusion to lower the southeast deck and raise the northeast deck. This would imply that the new northwest deck would have to be up one step as well, which was not ideal.

With the unhappy decision made (it was the morning), I went back inside to work on some other things. About midday, I went out to talk to the carpenter again to see how things were going. He informed me that he'd figured out a way to make the decks all the same level. He did so almost matter of factly like it was something I probably was not all that interested in. Anyway, I was very, very pleased he was able to work it out.

In fact, they were already adding some spacing strips to level out all the existing frames and had built part of the span between the deck. Thus, they were well on the way. There would be some small height transitions between the deck and concrete, but they were all small enough not to pose a trip hazard (unless you are a real foot dragger).

The first deckboards were put on the southeast deck. They did this at atime that I thought was very premature. There were still structural issues to resolve and other work to do in the area around the front-facing fence. Maybe they had a good reason, but something made me think they just wanted to throw down some boards to make me feel better. Maybe the average customer likes to see deck boards to make them feel like progress is being made.

The southeast deck was the first to have all the deckboards installed and gave us the first real view for how this was going to look: it was fantastic. I was very pleased with the result. At this point, no work was done on the new stairs, but they did have the plan for it all worked out.

I generally do not like steep and/or high stairs. I got a great appreciation for how the rise/run of stairs matters when I toured Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin House in Buffalo while I was in college. Going up to the second floor, I only felt like I went up a half level, and it was a pleasant climb at that, with a more natural gait. Thus, for the deck stairs, I wanted them to be at most 6 inches high, and I wanted them to be a full stride in length. This full stride length also would match an existing concrete step. I wanted the deck stairs and these concrete stairs to flow smoothly together.

My initial design had hand rails for the stairs. I did this because I thought the city code would require it. I did a lot of research on stair railing codes to come up with the dimensions. However, since the deck is not that high where the stairs are, it was not necessary (and my old deck stairs did not have railings either. This was good news for many reasons:

• opened up more space for more deck surface area;
• less of an obstacle as you take things up and down; and
• would be a lot cheaper.

The end result looked very, very slick: the carpenters did a great job on this.

The biggest conundrum with the stairs is that I had not decided exactly what the lighting solution would be. I knew I wanted the stairs illuminated, and preferred something on the staor risers, but the exact size and such was not decided. However, before they built the stairs, they would need to run the wiring I needed for the stairs. I had decided on a low voltage (12V DC) solution for the deck, and the use of LEDs, but I was very unhappy with the local selection of lights I found.

I had to make a decision, so I hedged my bets a bit and had them drill a small circular hole in the middle of the stair risers with a wire coming through. Once I decided, I could expand this hole or add other ones if needed. In the worst case, I could even replace the boards if I decided a light on the risers was not preferred.

The biggest unknown in the design was the new northwest deck that would be along the back of the house and over the area where there was the new drainage pipes. There used to be a concrete slab in this area, bnut that was removed to help the drainage many years before. It was unclear how the structure of the new deck and the drainage pipes would interact, nor was it clear that it was possible to make the deck the same height as the other decks. It was probably a week into the project before the carpenters began to contemplate how to solve this problem.

It was about this time when it became clear that the new drain pipes would be in the way of the new deck structure. Rather than the 12 inch trench initially dug for the pipes, the entire area would need to be dug out 12 inches deep to allow pouring some concrete footers and adding some joists. Once that was excavated, the pipes would need to be put under that, buried another 12 inches. I also had to make sure there was enough gap between the ground and the deck joists so that water could flow under it. I was very afraid that the deck blocking water flow would be making my drainage issues worse, so I made sure that there was enough clearance.

This new deck would be adjacent to a couple stairs that go up to the pool. These stairs are very stylish curves shapes, which looks nice, but complicates the deck to stair transition. My early designs attempted to fill in as much of the nooks and crannies as possible. Realizing that this could greatly complicate the structure, I decided to keep it straight and deal with the leftover "nowhere land" at alater date. So I told the carpenter to make the deck a rectangle that was as wide as possible without running into the stairs.

Update from August 22, 2013: See the Deck Perimeter Project Page for what was eventually done with the left over "no man's land" next to the northwest deck.

The northeast deck is where the hot tub used to be and would be the main useful living area of the deck. Most of the existing deck frame could be reused as it was built to support 500 gallons of water in a hot tub (which is probably about 5,000 pounds of weight). However, at one end there was some joists that needed replacing and this also was the area adjacent to the new deck. The new deck framing thus flowed into this new section of decking

A nice result of all this was that the northeast deck wound up being a bit larger than it used to be and than my designs called for. On the south side, it was about 6 inches wider due to not needing stair hand rails. On then north side, it was wider to align with the new northwest deck width. Finally, on the east side, for some reason it wound up being about 4 inches wider, I think this was due to the vertical posts for the deck screen being on the outside, instead of the inside of the outer-most joist.

The old deck had an outlet on one of the walls, which was handy at times. I wanted to retain an outlet, but move it to the other side of the stairs since that was where I would need it the most. I plan on putting an outdoor table to serve as sort of a workbench for outdoor projects. I'd rather not have cords running across the stairs while I am working.

Although I had not decided the exact deck lighting, I decided to run a ton of low voltage wire (12 gauge for safety) to ensure that I could accomodate any solution. Thus, in each major corner is a wire and they all run to a home location, which was planned to be the location of the AC to DC transformer. This was on the lower back wall of the northeast deck. Therefore, I would also need an outlet near where all the low voltage wires terminated so I could plug in a transformer. I was still not sure how this would work as a transformer in this location would not make it easy to turn on and off. More about the lighting solution follows below.

The other electrical work needed was terminating the 220V wires that used to power the hot tub. I had disconnected the hot tub and had the circuit breakers off, but I wanted these wires to be "professionally" terminated in a junction box. I did not want to remove them as I might find the need for 220V power for something else one day (car charging station?) and wanted to leave my options open.

As seen in the pictures above of the completed northeast deck, all that the contractors did was to provide a 4x4 and 2x4 frame for me to finish the deck privacy fence. The day after the carpenters finished I was ready to install the trim and lattice work, but more about this work can be found on the Deck Screen Project Page.

With the Ipe deckboards and deck screen trim Ipe boards in place, it was time to apply oil to the Ipe. You can leave Ipe unfinished and it will weather to a grey color and last just as long (som say 70 years or more), but if you oil Ipe, it takes on a much more elegant and pleasing color. Thus, we decided we would oil the Ipe, which means this also will need to be done about every couple years (as most wood decks need to be).

Ipe also has the nice quality of not being monochrome in color. It can vary from dark brown to light brown, and even be reddish or greenish. The picture at right shows one area where there is a particularly rich variation.

For me, I visually had an image in my mind of what I hoped the decks would look like, and it was not until we finished oiling them that I would be able to see that vision realized. I was very eager to oil the decks, but had to wait for a window of time where there would not be rain for 48 hours.

To apply an oil finish (in general) you put it on liberally, but uniformly, and let it sit for a bit (about 15 minutes), then you wipe off the excess. The more the wood absorbs the oil, the less critical it is worry about wiping up the excess. However, Ipe is famously very dense and does not absorb that much oil. Therefore, if you do not wipe off the excess, you wind up with a very sticky surface that will act like glue for all the dust and dirt. I have about a half dozen people warn me about this, so I made sure we did not leave the oil sitting too long.

Next up was the staining or painting of the deck screen. I write "staining or painting" because I am still not entirely sure what to consider the product we used. Details of this, including how we came to decide on this particular color can be found on the Deck Screen Project Page.

The details on the deck lighting were the last thing that got settled on and was not fully settled until the Deck Furniture Project was just about completed. I was eager to install the furniture, but it would be in the way of installing deck lighting, so I had to get that sorted out firts. You can read all about the details on the Deck Lighting Project Page.

Finally we come to the last step and the culmination of years of planning and months of coordination, problem solving and work: installing the furniture. This completed the grand, initial design. The furniture was built with one large initial phase and then a series of incremental work. Read about the details of all this on the Deck Furniture Phase I and Deck Furniture Phase II project pages.

In summary, here is all the deck furniture that got built and installed with the quanities in parentheses:

• (4) 5 foot long benches
• (2) 2 foot long benches (chairs)
• (4) Small side tables
• (2) Large side tables
• (3) Ottomans
• (1) Dining table
• (4) Dining chairs (store bought)
• (1) Work bench and cabinet
• (1) Clothes/towel drying rack