5 MORE Tools You Need To Build A Deck || Dr Decks

hey guys dr dex here today i want to talk to you about five more tools that you need to build a deck uh thanks for watching i really appreciate it if you like what you see please click that subscribe button and hit the bell icon to be notified when we're putting out fresh content and also you can comment down below and hit that like button as well all right so first thing we do on every project is we dig we dig holes and we dig a lot of them and a good set of digging utensils will go a long way when you're starting out building decks i always buy premium shovels because shovels uh pry bars rock bars brakes that kind of stuff they break they don't last forever so i find that when i buy like a fiberglass handle shovel it's going to last a lot longer than a wood handle will you can see this shovel's got some a weak spot in it i could probably have that welded up if i was concerned about it or you know eventually it's just going to break and we'll get a new one but you got to have digging digging implements to be able to create holes in the ground so you can create your foundation for your deck regardless if you're using precast footing blocks or if you're digging massive six foot deep holes in your jurisdiction or if you're up in canada somewhere so you got to have good digging equipment regardless uh if it's a postal digger shovel rock bars that kind of thing i like this rock bar in particular it has a wedge on one side for breaking up dirt breaking up rocks that kind of thing and then the other side has a tamper which we use quite often to tamp out flatten out uh the bottom of a hole uh they're they're kind of heavy but they do really good job of busting up busting up the ground and it's pretty pretty important to have one of these i've had one since day one since i was 21 years old and started my own business i've had a rock bar without a shovel flat shovels come in handy as well especially when you're moving concrete and you're pulling it out of a wheelbarrow these come in real handy again i like this one's a home depot version but they last a long time and we use them every day so good break i always get fiberglass uh handled stuff or steel handled stuff uh depending on where i'm buying it so um that's that's one thing you need when you're building decks i know this one might sound a little silly to some of you but when you're building decks you gotta have a tape measure uh if you don't have one of these you're in trouble you're gonna need it you're gonna have to have it i've never built anything without measurements so i know there's some guys that'll just buy a bunch of 12 footers and go oh that's the length cut them let's do it you don't have to cut them just stick them up against the house uh nail them up okay put on the outside rim joist okay lay decking you know but but uh you know you got to have a good tape measure i use stanley fat max i like the fat max i think it's a great tape we use these uh here's a little bonus footage for you we buy these uh self-sticking scratch pads that we always put on the fat max and that's why i just buy a standard 25 foot fat max that has a nice flat surface on the top because then i can stick my notepad on there we use we use scratch pads all the time we also use these things which i know you've seen and you've asked about these are called a quick snap this wasn't one of my items today but you saw me grab for my chest i took this off here so that it wouldn't detract from the video but then when i went to go grab it it's it's automatic when you start using these things every day like we do it becomes automatic that you're grabbing for your pencil right here it's not here it's not down here it's right here so i don't even have to look for it you know i know when it when it's secure i don't even look at it i just grab it okay so but the scratch pad is almost as important as having this quick snap these are made by fast cap and i know they're on youtube and you can also find them on instagram and fastcat makes all kinds of cool tools for carpenters and woodworkers and uh do-it-yourselfers and all that but this one item right here i buy in bulk because we go through a lot of them but it is super nice to have a place to write notes on it's not a lot of room but we can get 20 measurements on here if we have to but i'm usually writing two or three measurements down on this thing and then i can put it you know put this away put my put my tape down and go over to the chop saw and then talk to us talk to nazi and say oh yeah blah blah blah and they go wait what was that measurement again and i just looked down oh yeah it's 28 and 19 inches it's right there as long as you write it down man you'll never forget it so tape measure notepad quick snap those are all really good things to have if you want to build decks so another thing you might consider investing in for your business maybe when you're first starting out this may not be in the budget because they're not cheap but i really firmly believe in stabila products i love their laser levels and their levels uh we have the lar-350 that's what we use for for preliminary leveling this thing has saved me thousands of dollars of mistakes when you're pouring concrete and you have to have an elevation if you pour your footings too high and i've done this several times even as a professional in 30 years in the in the industry i've poured my concrete too high on a low deck like we're building a really low deck right now we're using precast pier blocks for this particular deck but that's what we're using this for right now is to make sure that our footings are deep enough so that we don't have to have a problem trying to dig them up again and set them lower into the ground so we're using this lar 350 right on top of this septic tank lid and we're figuring out all of our elevations the laser is hard to see even in the shade so it has a receiver this is called the rec 300 it's a digital receiver it's pretty cool as you get into the into the range of the laser the laser will pick up right here on this red and then it'll start telling you higher or lower so it says oh you got to come up and then as you go up or down now we're pretty much dead even there's level you can even i don't know can you see that laser going across there so once sometimes once you start using the uh transmitter or the receiver you can kind of see the laser going across it as well so this is a very valuable tool for us we mostly use it when we're pouring low decks on concrete or when we're trying to set elevation on a second story deck for post heights those are very time consuming and if we can correlate a relationship between the laser and the ledger of the house then we can figure out how tall to make all of our posts and then we just go through and measure to each footing and then we can cut all our posts to height so that is in my opinion something that everybody should have you don't have to buy the fancy one but as you develop your business and you become more successful and you have a few extra bucks to spend it's kind of a great way to go and since we're on the topic of stabila something else that i recommend everybody have that's going to build a deck is a really nice set of levels my wife actually bought me my first set of stabilis for christmas one year she got me a jam kit and i still have those levels that was 15 20 years ago but now i have some really sweet r beams and i have a full collection of stability levels also we have some other plate levels which come in very handy as well but if you had to start off with just one set i would just get either a jam kit or a set of these r beams the r beams come there's a four foot a two foot and an eight foot these are really awesome levels they're sturdy they come in a great bag they're nice to carry they're kind of just grippable you can just grab them with one hand um and they're dead-on accurate they're also very trustworthy like if you need something that for a straight edge i use these all the time that's why i like the eight-footer because if i need to see something super flat or if i want something that's super straight i'll pull up my eight foot r beam and i can lay it across like this deck over here for example there's three beams and they're within eight feet i can pull this out and i can get all my elevation grading done after my initial grading with the laser and dial it in with this r beam and now i need i know this thing's dead flat even if there's some inconsistencies in the joist framing at least i know that i started out with a nice flat level surface all right here's the last thing on my list that i think you need to build a deck and this one's really cool i don't know exactly where you can get them probably try amazon but it's a fold out square we have a couple of these this one is more of a three four five formula i also have another one made by stanley that's a fold out that's a true 45 now that one comes in a little more handy when you're doing a lot of 45 degree angles this one is strictly to make sure you're square but it works really good it folds up you basically just push it together like this and it folds up into a really compact space so we have a special spot on our job site trailer for these so they stay handy but they also stay out of the way and they are aluminum they can bend this one has a couple of bends in it but it still works really great uh for squaring things up and as a deck builder when you're building even a simple 10 by 10 deck or 10 by 20 and it's a second story deck man you want to make sure that baby's square we do we use these a lot of the times when we're laying out our footings and with strings and we make sure that everything's square that way or we also can use these 10 feet up in the air and with a straight edge to make sure that our beams are set exactly where we want them so this one is very valuable i have a lot of people ask me hey where did you get that fold out square and locally i think there's a place mclendon hardware probably has them but i'm sure you could go onto amazon and find a foldout 345 square and i recommend every deck builder to have one of these in their arsenal because it just helps you become a better carpenter by keeping all of your framing square you'll know right away if you're off it's it's kind of like pulling a three four five if you know what that is where you measure three feet one way four feet the other way and then you're supposed to have five feet in between it this is like a shortcut to that and it's a little more accurate and you can actually pin it up against you can stand in between here and you pin this thing up against the house and you can really see what's going on with your squareness of your beam or your joist so that is something that i recommend that you obtain all right guys so that's all i have for you today uh that's five more things that i think you need to build a deck thank you for watching please click that subscribe button hit that bell icon to be notified and don't forget to comment below and like this video thanks for watching have a great day

Channel: drdecks

Views: 6,563

Rating: 4.9820628 out of 5

Keywords: Dr decks, drdecks, deck building, custom decks, pacific northwest, carpentry, decks, deck, deck board bending, top 5, top five, lists, top 5 lists

Id: WSstCE8Xaiw

Length: 11min 38sec (698 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 10 2020