Name: How to Build a Floating Deck
Uploaded: 2020-03-13T06:50:33.000Z
Duration: 20 min 12 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

We're gonna be building a small floating deck around this tree to be a great place to entertain your friends and family this summer.

It's a smaller deck, so it's perfect for do it yourselfers.

A floating deck means that it's not attached to the house.

It's gonna be about 12 inches above the ground when we get done.

Now, because our deck is less than 200 square feet and it won't be attached to the house.

You don't have to go below the frost line for our foundation, which is gonna be good for us because we're definitely gonna run into a lot of tree roots.

You're gonna want check with your local building department to see if a permit is required for this type of deck.

They'll give you the size limitations and where you can sighted on your yard.

Our deck only needs to be 18 inches off the property line.

All right, We're gonna have a little bit of digging for this project.

Whenever you dig, You want to call 811 so they can mark any underground utilities before you begin.

The plan for our deck is to use paper base and concrete deck blacks as the foundation.

Then we'll install two by six Joyce right on top of the blacks.

We'll use paver base and cap blocks to support the step.

Then we'll add the decking and finished off the facial boards on this type of project.

I'd like to lay it out ahead of time to see how it's gonna look.

Our deck is gonna be 14 foot by 14 foot, so I've laid those out with the tape measure I made up.

Some batter board's gonna put these in just outside where the deck is gonna be.

I pound these in pounded and make sure it's tight and I take my string line, tie it right around the batter board.

Then I'm gonna run it out to my better board down here.

I'm going to measure off the sidewalk the death of our step and make a mark on the batter board.

Continue setting up the strengths melody of my better boards and my strings in and had my layout in all my dimensions.

I'm gonna check and make sure that it's square.

This is easy to do by using the 345 method.

Measure three feet along one string and make a mark, Then mark four feet along the adjacent strength.

Adjust the strings until the diagonal equals five feet.

Now your corner square, you can mark the corners with small stakes.

Gonna do one last check to make sure it's perfectly square.

With the help of Mark, I'm gonna measure the diagonals.

Okay, the diagonals should be equal for a square layout.

I'll also marked the lines for the deck blacks.

The first row will be about a foot from the front edge.

There'll be a row in the middle and a row near the back edge.

Now that the deck is laid out, we can start to remove this side.

This is an optional step, but it's a good idea to keep weeds from growing up through the deck.

One way to do it is with the shovel, but it's gonna take us quite a while, or you can use a rented side cutter to use it.

Adjust the blade, engage it, engage the wheels and squeeze the throttle right.

Now that we have our side removed, we're gonna start setting our concrete deck blocks.

These are a great alternative to concrete foundations.

They still hold your deck up off the ground.

They could hold your framing members horizontally.

Or if you have a post for a higher deck, it could hold it vertically like this.

But always check your local building codes before you start for our deck will use blocks to the end of each choice and a few to hold up our center beam.

You can also go without the center beam and use more blocks under each choice for more support.

Our decks gonna be about 12 inches above the ground.

Reference that off this patio, we're gonna have one step here, so I'm gonna measure level, measure the height off my patio.

Then I'll know what height I need to set these blacks.

So my framing will be at the correct height.

I need to raise the black just a bit with paper base.

Now, I'm gonna start digging a trench so I could put my paper base in so I can set my blacks you don't need to go to deep.

I'll use some of the leftover soil to fill in the low spots.

Next on, install some landscape fabric with spikes.

The roots will still be able to get water and air.

I use a few inches of paper based in the bottom of the trenches and tamp it down with a tamper lay paver base for each row of blacks.

Now that I have my paper based in place, I want to check.

Make sure that all three rows are level to each other.

So I use this long to buy six and my level to check them.

I can start setting my concrete deck blocks.

We're gonna take this two by six, set it in place.

If one block is too low, we could put a little paper base underneath it.

If it's too high to take a little bit out, we'll do the same in the back.

Now that we have our four outside corner blocks set and level.

The centre wants a little high, so I'm gonna take this out.

We got our pruner blocks set on level tomorrow.

We'll start working on our framing today.

I'm going to use pressure treated lumber, zinc coated hardware and galvanized nails.

The pressure she had lumbers gonna resist decay.

Rusting for our framing will have one long Joyce at each side sitting on blacks, the rim Joyce will attach to these boards.