How To Build A Deck | #4 Railing

hi welcome back to house improvements calm I'm Shannon and we're just continuing on with our deck series here today we're going to look at building and installing railing and this particular customer we are doing still using pressure-treated lumber for part of the railing for the the two rails and the hand or the top rail and then we're using these painted aluminum spindles and these spindles are pretty common you can buy them at just about any big-box store basically all it is is a three I think it's about three-quarter inch tube of aluminum it's all powder coated and I'm also using these clips that are mounted to the to these two rails and they fit right into the the end of the spindle so it's a pretty simple system goes up really fast just all before we get started on it though I'll just kind of point out a few things with some of this existing stuff that I already finished so to get our components what I what I did for this rail here and this piece right here I just ripped a two by six right in half so it was a pressure-treated two by six ripped it in half and got those two pieces and then of course the cut sides which would be down here and up on the top of that one was treated because it's exposed to the weather now also you'll notice I've got a space here you just kind of decide what you want for a space in our area the country shoveling off the deck and the winter sort of thing with snow it's kind of nice to have a little bit of room to kind of push a light snow underneath there so I stayed up I believe it was about two and a half inches there's no real set rule there other than one major building code rule is you don't want any more than four inches of space in between these spindles or in here between a post it's against a wall or anything like that so so for our case what I did to make sure I was under the four inches i spaced space these out at four inches so by the time you get the half the thickness of each spindle in there it's less than four inches in between here other code rules and again just check with your local authorities but generally height from top adapter to top a rail anywhere between 36 to 42 inches to be quite honest I don't think there's really a maximum height but no lower than 36 inches most in most areas so that's another one those are the main ones that I can think of right now we won't be dealing with installing the posts in this video to see how those were installed just go to our channel and look up the decking video because before we did the decking and the boarder we put all the posts on so that'll be all explained there and as well there will be some stairs going on this deck and until they're on I'm not going to bother with the handrail or anything so you can look for the handrail going down the stairs and the spindles and everything on the stair video so again just go to our YouTube channel check that out and you can see all the videos there so anyways I think from this point we're just going to move over to a section that I don't have completed and show you what I did okay so we've come over here to a section that I haven't completed yet and really the first process like I said I split these two by six and a half to get these two pieces to the top and bottom rail then to get their length I can use my digital measuring tool I just put it tight against the post aiming over there I get my measurement I did the same thing approximately in the area where the railing top rail is just because if your posts are 100% plumb they could be a little bit off and need to be cut different lengths all of mine were basically within an eighth of an inch you can see this one here if I flush this end up well this isn't even an eighth of an inch but I think the worst one was close to an eighth so don't get too worried about that just as long as they're really close to plumb you'll be fine get your measurements cut the pieces off I'm just going to turn that off and remember to put your preservative on the cut edge now if you want you can sand the bottoms of the cut edges around this edge off or whatever for this project I didn't I like the look of that sharp clean cut on the bar okay so the next step is flush and end up here and as long as you don't have too much of a difference you know 1/8 of an inch you aren't going to notice if the spindles are out that little bit and there's a couple different ways you can do this what I found worked best for this deck and the spacings of the spacing of the posts I had is I found the center and that's where my one of my spindles was and then I measured out my 4 inches each way from that you could find your Center and then go 2 inches each way that if it works out nicer for your space there you can see on this one ended up with just a nice space at the end and even some of the you know because your your posts are exactly all the same distance apart it just kind of worked out pretty nicely doing it the way I've started out so so that's that just talking about the spacing of the posts and I don't think I mentioned it in the other video basically I tried to keep under 6 feet on the space in my post it makes for a really solid railing the posts are really solid and I just I just find it's a better situation some people will go you know eight feet apart and try to save a post or two on it on the deck but you're going to end up with some problems later on down the road in my opinion okay so we'll just measure the length that we've got for here and divide that in half is 27 and a half so I'm going to mark my right in the center Center distance this way and Center on the width of the wood there as well on both of them if you want to double check you know in case you're you're not sure of your math you can always measure back the other way when you're going to Center actually I am off a little bit I'm going to go 27 five-eighths so that's one way of double-checking when you're just measuring to the middle of something its measured from both ends up it's going to be equal okay and then all I do is line up my tape to that Center mark that I've got I'm going back four inches every time I'm just basically putting the a pencil point kind of mark on there like so do this one while I'm here I've also got my tape lined up as close as I conic and eyeball it to the center of the thickness of that those rails as well okay so I've got those all on there just have a look and see if if you are in the center if not just you know go back and correct any that look like they're a little bit out or you can measure each one doesn't whatever you decide you want to do those all look pretty good next step is installing these these anchors are these clips I guess they are basically studs for the spindles and there it's this is just a really simple system there are other styles and even with this these spindles that I've got here you could drill a whatever the diameter those is I think it's 3/4 you could drill a series of 3/4 inch holes you know half an inch deeper whatever in every one of these boards but that is just very time-consuming I think you can even actually buy some of this rail all pre-made that's it is drilled so you could go that route I elected to use these clips they actually work very well so and they come with the proper screws and everything for acq decking so they won't corrode so I'm just going to pop all these in just the only thing I found is just to be careful not to over-tighten them I haven't broke one yet but I think you probably could if you really cranked it up okay so we got all those little doohickeys on there I'm just going to move those out of the way I made up some spacer blocks that I was just setting the rails on to keep my space consistent up off the deck I have my bottom piece marked it's this one I'll pre start some angled toe nails or toe screws into here so to do this part this is to do the actual attachment to the post so I'm going to start back I don't know what that is maybe inch and a quarter go on a pretty good angle I'm going to put two in each end I'm just starting them this way it's just easier when it's laying flat like that I'm using these are just the three inch same decking screws the acq screws that I use to put the dank the deck planks down oops just get it in here like so in my case I'm basically just centering all of this up you can put it wherever you want you can put it out flush you can put it in whatever you decide to do there's no real set rule to that said so I'm just centering it up I found it basically at one inch from the exterior drive the screws home it's a little bit of wood that comes out and around there just take your finger and push it back flush kind of looks after it I mean if you really want to get fancy I guess you could use a pocket hole jig and do all these but I don't think it's really necessary okay so that's that one now I can stand all my spindles on there I've just got some close by handy here and they just simply push onto those there's some little little fins on there as the post or the spindle gets on further it just kind of wedges itself on there you can get these there's rectangular ones actually they're either rectangular or square I can't remember these ones are round obviously so I'm just pushing them on there and all the way down couple more this is a very easy DIY project that you can save a few bucks with and do it yourself this whole deck really now I took my spacer blocks out I put one in the middle because when I get this top rail all on there I found that I've just got to bang this down a little bit to tighten everything up with a block and I was getting a little bit of bouncing there in the middle and they wouldn't tighten up so I found if I put that spacer under there it helped me out so so this part can be a little tricky but it's not even that bad just getting these all lined up and started on here first couple I did I actually laid the parts out on the deck like on the surface laying flat and put it all together it was easier to get going but then to try to move it around it just wanted to come apart I guess you know if you wrapped a strap around it or something to be all right but then I tried it this way the one time and seemed to work just as good so it definitely helps if your top rail fits tight kind of helps hold it up there so it isn't falling out of there every time you try to move something around so just work your way along from one end whatever it takes to get them in there okay so I got them all started I'll just tap that into where it's approximately centered knock those down a bit and I'm just using a block of wood to smash that down just tightens everything up nicely then I'm going to come around take this out come around and come up top so once I come up top here same as I did before whatever you decided to do as far as your space for this top rail or bottom rail you do it all the same on the top one and I don't know if the camera wants to maybe come in just a little closer to see you so now just to have the least amount of screws exposed as I can I did my angled toe screw from up top here because this will get covered with the handrail just like that do the same thing on this side like so now to cap this off I'm just putting a little bit of PL here on the post just to help glue that keep those from being kind of tippy after like that my handrail pieces right here slip into position okay just want to it's the same width as my post so I just want to flush it up so dropping everything just flush it up to the post same screws as I've been using these number eight three inches and I'm just putting this sorry actually I was using bigger screws just give me a second okay and then once you've got it in place to fasten it in just going in the santur in my case because the other piece under there I went to a little bigger screw I think these are number ten three and a half inch acq deck screw so I'll do the same thing at the other end coming in I don't know coming in about four inches or so and then I'm going to come out over about five spaces and the other ones okay and just put those in just just put them slightly countersunk they don't have to be drill home or whatever but just so they're down we get a nice solid railing now this customer is going to be putting little solar caps on on the post that's why we left them up just a little bit higher you can put wooden posts on or wooden post wooden caps metal caps or whatever there's all kinds of choices you could have your post cut off flush and what I've done before is make this top rail a two by six and just run it right through solid so the top of the post isn't even seen so I guess that's the main thing get all your posts cut off ahead of time to the right height I've got one post over on this side and I just maybe we'll do a bit of a demonstration because it's up against the house on exactly how to cut that all these other ones are pretty basic this one I didn't even have to cut but really all you do is figure out your elevation off the deck mark it on three sides and then just take a skill saw cut it from two sides on a four by four skill saw a circular saw I'll cut right through it so that piece will fall off if your tops going to be seen then you want to might want to sand it flat or whatever but in most cases somebody somebody's putting something on here so it doesn't have to usually be perfect so we'll just get reset up and I'll show you how to deal with that one up against the house since you can't get at it with the saw from both sides okay so what I did is I measured up from the deck the elevation that I wanted and I just I did it obviously before this was in the way but just used a square to to get two sides marked and I you can notice I've got the handrail off II you should do it before you put any of this stuff in the way but I kind of forgot so so anyways the hand the top hand rails off just so I can see what I'm doing here so then just make one cut here on this side and then we'll have to use a reciprocating saw to cut the rest of it but I like to use the circ saw for as much of the cut as I can because it gets you started nice and straight okay so we've got basically a nice guide there now now I can use the reciprocating saw just slide it right in it's really binding okay so we've got our post cut off and now this one will be all the same height as all the rest of them as well all right there's our video on installing the deck railing and goes right along with all the other videos we've shot doing this deck so you want to check any of them out if you happen to not seen them yet you can go to our YouTube channel and search you there we've got lots we've got over 100 videos you can check them all out on YouTube there also we've got our website at house - improvements comm and there we've got lots of articles and and different subjects there you can read about or our main thing on the website is the forum it's very popular so if you have any questions or problems or comments you can just go to the forum there and post it up thanks for watching

Channel: HouseImprovements

Views: 742,599

Rating: 4.8908882 out of 5

Keywords: how-to, diy, build, deck, yard, Do It Yourself (Hobby), railing, spindles, pressure, treated, wood, safety, height, building, code, Deck Railing, Repair, Installation, Construction, Design, aluminum, composite, Hobby (Interest), rail, ballister, guard, 2x6, P.T., hand, construct, make, Interior Design (Industry)

Id: Af1stuUxZuE

Length: 20min 57sec (1257 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 27 2015