Mid Span Blocking: Why Do It & How? || Dr Decks

hey guys Dr Dex here today we are going to tell you how to stiffen up a deck so if you like this video don't forget to hit that subscribe button thanks for coming to our Channel and hope that somebody gets something out of this video so we have a large deck that we're building it has a 16 foot span from the house to the beam and they're 2 by 12 joists so they're very thick joists as a matter of fact we really can't get much thicker product unless we go to an engineered product okay so the problem with that is if you just run those joists the 16 feet they're super wobbly when you're trying to run your decking up there none of the joists will be straight there's going to be all kinds of issues uh trying to keep the the framing looking good keeping it intact and keeping straight lines so what we're going to do is we're going to add some mid-span pressure blocking to the middle of the deck to keep it from the joists from moving this way but also for deflection purposes to help keep it from wanting to dip because we are spanning a really long distance so with those two things in mind we are going to run a 2x6 instead of running a full 2 by 12 we can't do that because we are running a waterproof bladder inside of these joist space as well so we're only going to use half the thickness of the joist Bay for our pressure blocking and we're going to hang it low while we do that we're also going to use structural Fasteners some fasten Master Timber locks so that we can have a nice tight fit and things won't squeak in the future so that's what we're up to today we're gonna start getting some measurements and start cutting down some materials and start getting those installed okay so basically what I've done is I've taken a two by six and I've put it on the top of all the joists and I've put one screw in the top of each joist and I've completely done my layout so the layout that's on the house and the layout that's on the far beam is what I did for the center of the deck so all the joists now are nice and straight and ready to go then I marked the center line down the middle of this deck and then I drew a line on each side of the joist and I did that because I'm gonna use that as my Center Line and then I'm going to stagger the blocking in between all of these joists as we go down the line so basically I'm ready to go all the prep work's been done I just have to get some measurements now and I'm just going to measure out a few boards and show you how we install those to really stiffen this thing up so the tops are all locked in that it's a temporary board that board will be coming off a little bit later today once we get all the blocking in and I'm happy with the way it's uh sitting so we'll get to that and then we'll get going on cutting the blocks in and getting them installed [Music] foreign so you'll see as I tighten up the clamp it really tightens up this bottom Edge so now that I've cut this block the same distance as up here I know that these joists are going to be plumbed to one another a little bit closer than if if I just would have guessed on where to put the screws another thing this will do is it'll help tighten up the outside Rim joists we might add a few more blocks like this to tighten it up where our railing is going to go but it's a good start for us to keep that going as well so just really trying to lock this deck together and keep it from being so wobbly in the middle and again like I said before to help with some deflection when there's more weight towards the middle of the deck or bouncing going on or people are walking or jumping you're gonna get a little bit of deflection in the deck so these blocks are going to help with that keeping the deflection from wanting to be as bouncy as it is normally okay I kind of like that I'm on my lines because I've already pre-drawn all these lines so you don't have to put a square up in here to do this then I have my four inch fasten Master Timber locks so I'm using a four inch structural screw two per side per block to install this okay sometimes I'll use a shaved bit like this if I'm trying to get the screw to countersink into the side of the board the only place I really have to worry about that is on this very outside of this first outside Rim joist because you can see it's just sticking out a little bit and that might affect us when we go to put our fascia boards on so we might have to come back and pre-drill these outside two screws all right so I got half that in when you're putting in these blocks we are putting softening underneath this as well so we want to make sure that these blocks do not hang down that would be bad if they're hanging up a little bit that's okay but if they're hanging too far down that's going to be an issue so we just got to make sure that we're up high enough and we are all right I can bust the clamp loose that Block's installed and we just go to the next one and we just keep doing that we just keep installing these blocks all the way down the line and then that will help stiffen our deck now because these screws aren't buried I'm not going to put these these blocks in the exact same line I'm going to stagger them right and left of this Center Line so that it makes it easier for installation so this one's just going to go over here like so I'll go ahead and clamp this one's very loose like I said before you're going to have a little bit different widths on the bottom of your joists than you would at the top of your joist because the bottoms aren't locked in so that's a great example right there of why you need might need a clamp or an additional hand to help you put these together but a clamp like this this Irwin Quick Grip is really going to help you keep these positioned properly you can see I'm really out of square so I just got to knock the top I might drop it a little okay that side's ready to go there's my line I'm a little high sometimes you may have to wait to do one side because if you keep banging both sides one side might be too low so you might have to fasten one side together and then come back and fasten the other side after the fact after you bang it back in place I'm going to grab two screws so now that these two boards are staggered I can easily get my screw into this side as well okay two down two to go I'm gonna go ahead and put my Fasteners in this side all right that one's in let's do one more this one's a little bit more snug but it's still kind of loose compared to some of the other ones we've installed where they're nice and snug or tight but that's not a bad fit so I'm gonna go ahead and bring my clamp over tighten it up and I can see already that like I was talking about earlier this side of this board is really low so I try to bang it up it might raise the other side A Little Too Tall it did not okay I'm gonna go ahead and fasten this side first and then I'll finish this side off over here okay that side's done that's nice and flat two more screws and that block will be done like I said before you really don't want these hanging down too far and if you can't get it to go up you might have to change a clamp there we go now it's high enough where I know it's not hanging down too low when you put all these lines and draw them in it gives you an indicator of where to put the Fasteners as well all right and we'll just keep doing that over and over and over again until we finish our our entire line of blocks and then that's going to really solidify the center of this deck then on top of that we will be doing some internal V bracing as well I will do that in a separate video guys so thanks for watching if you like what you saw today don't forget to hit that subscribe button and hit that Bell icon to be notified when we're putting out new content thanks for watching and coming to our page we really appreciate it have a great day [Music] thank you

Channel: drdecks

Views: 96,933

Keywords: Dr decks, drdecks, deck building, custom decks, pacific northwest, carpentry, decks, deck, deck board bending, deck framing, deck stairs, deck blocking, martinez hammer, under deck waterproofing, diy, how to, building, construction, tools, do it yourself, build deck, outdoor living, outdoor deck

Id: ZXb_EoRc6f0

Length: 8min 34sec (514 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 08 2023