Add The Joists To Build A Deck, step by step

Alternate punny post title: Joist to the world. (I will pause while you golf clap)

Good news! My dad made it back from my grandma’s house in West Virginia so operation double-up the girders and bolt them to the posts was able to commence with him at my side. As I began to tell my dad “Okay, you are going to hold the board in place in the air while I drill pilot holes…” he cut me off and suggested we simply put both girder boards on the ground, nail them together and that way they’d both rest on the notched posts – no air-hold required. Smart. I knew there was a reason I picked him as a father.

So we clamped the girder boards together so what-would-become-the-top-edge was perfectly lined up (boards are never ideal, so even two boards marked 2 x 10 might be slightly distinct widths). Then we nailed them together.

To refresh your memory about how this deck will come together, here is this handy little graphic that hopefully makes it a bit more clear:

Next we were able to rest the now double-thick girder on the notches and proceed with bolting them together. Our county requires us to use “two 1/2″ through bolts” – which meant I had to drill 1/2″ pilot holes through about 4.5″ inches of wood – which was a little bit of a challenge since my longest drill bit was barely that long.

But we got it done and were able to slide the bolts through with a bit of hammering, and then tightened the nuts on the other end.

It was in fact a remarkably plain process, and it likely took us about two hours to do the whole thing. Not necessarily a short time when you are standing in 95-degree morning heat. But, I’d say it is the first part of this process that has in fact been faster than we anticipated.

Oh, and here you can see how we joined the girders on the long side where it is in fact two sets of boards that butt up against each other on one post. It is like a through bolt party up in here.

Since our morning was going so speedily, I even convinced my dad to assist me go ahead and get the diagonal girder and posts measured, cut and set in place.

So by about noon we were looking at having accomplished fairly much our whole goal for the day.

Does that mean we get to stop? Of course not. Well, it did for my dad since he had other things to do at home. But after taking a breather (by which I mean working on something else inside with Sherry for a couple of hours) I returned to my slowly-getting-completed deck for my next step: laying weedblock and gravel.

A bunch of you folks have recommended taking some weed-preventative measures and I figured this was my last chance to have straightforward access to the whole space under the deck (since adding joists will mean plenty of new obstacles). So I took out one existing obstacle – the diagonal girder that we hadn’t bolted in yet.

Next came the weedblock. Using some leftover from Clara’s rock box plus another $12 roll from Home Depot, I was able to cover the whole area without a problem. I have mixed feelings about weedblock (since my experience has been that some weeds simply grow on top of it instead of under it) but I figured it is better than nothing. And for about $15 (including the ground staples to hold it in place) it is worth giving it a shot since it is the recommended method in our area when it comes to dealing with the ground under a deck.

Next up was covering the area in gravel, since it is harder for weeds to grow in a soil-less environment (and pests will like a weed-block-and-gravel-filled area a lot less than a damp-muddy-and-weedy spot to hide). My original plan had been to get a delivery of rocks from the same stoneyard where we picked up the gravel for our Hands-on patio, but I forgot to place the order and then was too impatient to wait. So instead I picked up two car-loads of this bagged gravel from Home Depot (it was marked down from $3.38 to $2.50/bag, saving me about $35!).

It was not necessarily straightforward hauling all of it from our driveway to the other side of the house where the deck is going in (again in near-100-degree heat) but by this point I had become fairly accustomed to being sweaty and gross (and the people at Home Depot were unfortunately accustomed to seeing me that way). So here is the space slowly filling up with rocks…

Nearly there…

…and complete. It took me 40 bags total. I know I will need more once I put the stairs in, but for now I am simply going to cross that bridge when I come to it.

It was about 7:30pm by the time I wrapped up getting my rocks down, so I called it a day. Though I was nearly excited sufficient to keep going because my next step would be joists… which meant it would at last start looking like a deck.

So the next day – despite being more sore than I have been in recent memory – I bucked up and got my joist on. Each of my joists would be about 7.5 feet long, so it meant trimming a smidge off of my 8 foot long 2 x 8″ boards.

 

I mainly took this picture of me marking my cut because every time I did this my eyes kept catching the word “PIVOT” in the corner of my straight edge and this scene from Friends would replay in my brain.

Anyways, once Ross was out of my head, I got to cutting with the circular saw – who is like my new best buddy on this deck project.

Once cut, the joists in fact simply rest on top of the girders – so there is no additional support needed to keep them up. But I did have to add some hangers on either side to give them some stability side-to-side. I had already installed all of the hangers on the siding side of the house, so it simply meant adding them on the brick side.

And since these hangers were no longer about keeping the hangers up, it was in fact more critical that I nail them in on the side (thanks to the handy angled-nail guides already in the hanger).

This was by no means a swift process (each hanger required 10 nails) and it did not take me long to wonder if I should’ve picked up a nail gun for this project. It was not much longer after that that I was in fact fairly certain I should’ve picked up one. But alas, I simply kept plugging along – thinking of how I would look like Hercules when all was said and done (spoiler alert: this did not happen, strangely sufficient).

As I brought in each joist, I double-checked my level as I went. If they were not level (while accounting for a slight slope away from the house for drainage) there was not a whole lot to be done since my girder was already set. But doing this did assist me spot one board that was too warped to use (it curved up on one end). And had anything been too crazy un-level I could buy (or rent) a planer to scrape a bit off the top of the offending joist.

Here is Clara watching me build what she now called my “fairly fairly deck.” Not the adjective I would choose myself, but as long as she’s showing interest in the project – I will take it.

Slowly but surely more joists joined their joist-y brethren and the space began looking more and more deck-ish.

When I got towards the end I did have to go ahead and bolt the diagonal girder in place, since the joists on the end would need to rest on it.

And at last, about four hours later – all of my joists were in.

I still have to add the rim boards along the exposed edge. It will be a bit complex because this is where I have to be precise about the angle I cut, so I did not have the mental juice left to tackle it after such a long day. And for now I simply left the joists on the end extra long (once I have determined my angle, I will use the circular saw to cut them more precisely).

Not too shabby though, right?

Before the day was through, I could not assist but test out my new creation a bit. You know, to make sure it in fact could hold some human weight.

It did! So I broke out a little glad jig. Call it my “Glad Glad Joist Joist” dance if you will.

Once I get those rim boards in, my next step is deck boards. I cannot tell you how excited we are to at last be at this step. This project has taken much longer than we anticipated (for which I blame equal parts on ourselves, inspectors, heat, and the lack of an army of helpers to speed things along). Oh well, that is Hands-on for ya. It’ll totally be worth it when we are sitting out there sipping lemonade, right? What have you folks been up to this weekend? Any outdoor or indoor projects that are at last turning a corner and looking like they are closer to done than undone?

Psst- Wanna catch up on all of the deck action? Here is where we shared our vision for the space, then we took out the plantings and the old balcony, followed by selecting our materials and documenting our first day of building progress. Then we dug our post holes, and then learned that we failed our first inspection. We revised our plan and dug more holes (which got approved) and proceeded to set posts. Whew, all caught up.