The easiest DIY DECK frame video!

pay attention Brian today I want to show you how to do a DIY deck frame I know I do a lot of professional decks and show you how the pros do it but I thought we'd strip it down today because I'm in my own backyard and show you how to do a bare basic DIY frame now if you look around my yard you'll see it looks like a lumber yard and my wife's not too happy about it so it's time for me to get to work and start doing some of those things on the list that I promised I'd have done probably months ago so let's go now this um gazebo or pergola or whatever this this thing currently is was here as soon as we moved in we've only lived here for about four months now and uh I definitely have to do something about that so I'm thinking this is a great place for a ground level deck and I'm going to put a gazebo on top of it once the deck is built so what I want to do first is demolish what we have here get it out of the way and then clean up the debris a little bit one thing I noticed as I got out here I've actually never stepped in this corner yet since I've lived here but check this out these exist eating Vines they take years to get this developed so I want to utilize those and have them grow on the pergola that I'm going to build and I think it'd be great so we'll cut these down to size but we'll keep them alive we'll just trim them back and then hopefully in the spring we'll see some craziness going on in the past we can come killing them as long as we keep the roots intact they're pretty much like weeds are going to just keep growing up and up and up and up so that'll eliminate what's stuck sniff that off and then we'll leave this intact and we'll leave this intact to shorten it a bit because the way it is right now isn't it crazy and that way when we build Our Deck we have an already indentured plant system to grow over the pergola that will make it look like it's been there for years so that's going to be pretty cool excited about that part oh look at this this is that's made of like teak wood and I know I can probably restore this and they look pretty cool it's cold but it's solid it's gonna be a shame to get rid of it yeah it's still good it looked like garbage at first but we can turn this into something nice today we're going to be using these tough block Foundation blocks they're a vinyl block that replaces the concrete blocks now this is typically something you'd use on a super low level deck a rooftop deck or a DIY job like we're going to do today and I'm going to keep it very simple very cheap and very basic to show you how to do a DIY deck with minimal tools minimal experience and minimal time all right so let's cut this thing down make sure you're wearing your earplugs safety glasses helmet hard hat uh face mask gloves all the protective equipment possibly chain mail whatever you feel comfortable with just to make sure you're safe foreign [Applause] [Applause] that was easy so one thing we have to admit is the fact that things are going to get much more dirty before they start to get clean but uh I think we'll be okay now I know what you're thinking why didn't you just go get a drill in a bunch of different bits and start removing the hardware well in my experience when Hardware gets that Rusty it becomes something you have to cut off anyway so I just figured I'd cut to the Chase and this is not perfectly good and salvageable so stop let's start out of here all right let's see if we can finish this thing [Applause] all right all right Plan B can't find my other Sawzall but I got this old hacksaw back in the day this used to be the trick just got to make sure it's real tight so let's see if we can uh finish this thing with this okay [Music] oh let's open this cut up a bit [Music] be careful now this see that it's actually almost faster with the hacksaw ignore that Christmas tree over there it's not hasn't been there for two months I didn't just throw it out the door as soon as Christmas was done leave it in the backyard [Applause] [Applause] my hands look like this so my wives can look like this okay so that was easy I just had to run to Home Depot and purchase a brand new measuring tape because apparently the 20 I bought last year aren't here which is great I'm sure that's relatable to a lot of people my finished frame is going to be eight feet inside to inside because I got an 8x8 pergola I'll be mounting inside the frame afterwards so we're going to do that with that being said each two by material is actually 1.5 inches thick so we're going to add three inches so in total we'll have an eight foot three by eight foot three deck frame let's do it so the first thing I'm going to do is put down some of this landscape fabric and that'll stop whatever weeds or grass is going to grow up through yeah this is a DIY job today so I need you to keep that in mind if this was a professional build for a client that's paying you as a professional I would suggest you put this fabric down and then you put three-quarter clear gravel on top before you do your foundation today we're just doing this roll this out snip and if it's a windy day you might want to nail these in with some spikes but luckily it's not too windy for me today or you can use staples Sometimes they come with them today we're using the tough block vinyl Foundation blocks these replace the old school concrete blocks that you see for DIY jobs what's cool about these you can do super low level decks with them and for us they say you can put it right on the dirt so we're actually just going to do that we're going to be using two by six pressure treated joists and that being the case we don't want our we don't want our cantilever to be more than about six inches because uh two by six typically doesn't make a great floor joist but for a DIY low-level deck it'll work perfectly foreign so the next step is we know our total outside to outside of our frame is going to be eight foot three so I'm going to cut three pieces of two by six and eight foot three inches foreign you can use a miter saw a chop saw a double bevel compound sliding miter saw don't do this to me now look at that she's going to battery heaven oh rest in peace you know what my surprise I've had this battery for years use it as a hammer we got more I purchased two by six by ten because in soft wood we can only buy dimensions of 8 10 12 16 and 20. now those Dimensions that we're purchasing I have an eight foot three thing to build obviously I'm gonna have to purchase the tens but it's not that wasteful because we take here eight foot three we'll be saving our cutoffs for blocking later mid-span blocking or blocking in the posts for the pergola here's a DIY tip what you want to do is take a speed square like this these are at relatively inexpensive tools that everyone would have if you're a professional if you're DIY I suggest you go and buy one you could get a cheap plaster one for around five bucks I think one of these are around 15 to 20. not a huge investment and it will make sure that your work's a lot cleaner now here's a trick if you have trouble cutting straight lines and all you're using is a circular saw and you don't have a lot of experience you put your cursor right there on the line you put your speed square against this is called the shoe plate of the saw what you want to make sure is that your blade and your cursor are actually in sync with each other because on a lot of saws they're not this particular saw is rather accurate so we can use the cursor but a lot of people recommend you follow the blade either way make sure your blades lined up with your mark and then go all right the tough block depending on which direction you go now this direction is for more swollen or wider Timbers depending on what you're framing with this is for the one by or the two by and that fits nicely right in there you see these little bumps on the surface that's what stops water from pooling right against the lumber so if you think about it this is actually a great solution for rooftop decks and stuff like that it's great try it like this another way you can freehand it watch the blade or the cursor depending on the saw you're using I just suggest watch the blade to be on the safe side [Applause] it's another one so you see here is the two inch and here is the the 41 mil it really depends on on where you're building so the two inch we're gonna have it go like that right here okay foreign and final trick I can show you the cutting these we take our mark very simple and we just cut it foreign [Applause] depends on the level of experience you have whether I recommend that for everybody no in there now we know all these so all three of these are the same size so this is sort of the layout for as wide as it's going to go and as we get to framing our Rim joists and all the joists in between we'll get to squaring that up but first let's throw a level on this and find out how level the ground was before we even started that's uh fairly close I wasn't expecting that so that being said a couple composite shims on that side and here to close up those gaps should do the trick that's fairly level earth going on here that's and they're all going the same direction which is fantastic so we know this Edge is uh well I have to say it's remarkably flat for what we're doing here and I think I deserve that for all the hassle we had to go through this morning to get to this point so I feel like I was given uh give it a break and uh I'll take it I want my pergola slash deck here that we're building to be eight by eight and I really want to utilize these existing Vines so I'm going to build them up pretty close to the vines and in the back here I'm going to notice you're going to notice there's space that's being unused between the fence and the deck the fence and the deck here as well so what I want to do is maybe build a garden bed in there so that we have some flowers and stuff around the deck that way it's not completely dead space and that's the idea for at least for what we're doing back here seven foot six right there all right that's the rough layout for now but we're gonna make sure everything is super Square in a minute and I'm going to show you how we do that once the joists are run look at this wow the ground here is remarkably level I got lucky um you will not be that lucky so I suggest either a system of of digging down certain blocks or shimming up your beams now I happen to get very lucky today and I'm going to take that and uh so my advice for you is figure out how to get your beam level it's going to be either you're digging down or you're shimming up one or the other so the first thing I want to do is establish how many joists am I going to actually need in this case we're doing them 16 inches on Center so come here we know that our ring joist is going to land right here at an inch and a half it's going to sit there so we want to go from Center here to the center being here so what you can actually do is just add three quarters of an inch to your total measurement so it's 16 and three quarters for your first one now you see that we move that into the middle and you can see Center and Center that's where it's going to be so 16 is the edge that's where your joist is going to sit right on now we're going to sit them right next to the red marks you notice on your tape you have the number is highlighted in red for your 16 on on centers and then we know that this is our Mark and this is where our joist is going on this side of the motor so we don't forget like to the end now this one it's pretty close to the end so what I actually want to do is come in here we know we have one going here and then I know I have a five and a half inch space for the pergola that I'll be putting in and I want that blocking to be there so really I want one here and I'm not here at all if you're gonna Mark out all your joists on your beam beforehand it would have been easier to stack all three up Mark all three at the same time in this case we didn't do that so I'll be doing it myself and here's what we're gonna do I want to make sure I Mark all the beams that way all my joists are going to be in the same place okay we're going to cut our Rim joists two of them will be eight feet and two of them will be eight foot three inches foreign that's one brand new tape stick people like why don't you mark it with a crow's foot because I don't freaking want to okay there's no need I just be pretending we cut things so damn accurately we don't need to [Music] what's your joists are cut we got them all in a pile over there we're gonna cut the rim joists in this case we need two of them we're going to cut them the exact same as the length of our beams that way we have an exact Square that's going to be eight foot three by eight foot three and we have a cantilever of six inches and just for reference I'm going to mark this one at six inches right here and line those two marks up that's how I know and then come over here I want you to see the side keep it flat on this side as well so steer that into place we are using the structural framing screws rather than framing nails which you can use but this being a DIY deck these are probably the easiest thing to use and these are code rated for framing so they're great now being that this is the first choice I want to come in from the outside on an angle inwards just like that if I go in from this way obviously the screw will just poke out the side same thing one screw through the back what I do is I move it out a little bit that way when the screw tows it in it'll now we can do the exact same thing on the other side squaring of the structure because as of right now the structure is sort of just eyeballed into place so we're just going to repeat the process from the other side if I come in at six inches here lift that off that is pretty obvious I'm gonna get that and that into place line those two up just like so easy peasy lemon squeezy same thing we did last time framing screw okay now the other side if you're working by yourself and this is a DIY job here's a little tip I'll give you there's a lot of different ways to do this and a lot of people will give you different ideas but what I do take one screw just you know half an inch into the grain there take your joist set it on the screw there that's going to hold that in place or help you hold that in place while you get your screws in here now this being a two by six the rule of thumb is you want to put three screws in each board two three now we go to the other side where our assistant screw is still standing there his arms are burning I'm sure we pull this screw out now ready to attach this on this end very easy very fun get this nice Square this is where the real fun is happening that we have that done we can scooch this one over we know where this needs to go but is it Center Let's uh measure we know we have eight foot three total so half of eight for three would be four foot one and a half so let's measure four feet one and a half inches take my trusty Speedy Square transfer that Mark and I know that this beam is actually supposed to be in the center over there just like that foreign Lumber you want to seal those cut edges so all the cut edges on PT technically should be sealed will that stop the project from rotting out absolutely not but here we are let's do it anyways because we don't want to be we want to be able to say we did when someone asked did you seal the edges we need to say of course not uh no that doesn't do anything now that we have all four Rim joists on it's time to get it Square so we're going to measure from corner to corner to do that now we go from corner the corner in this case we have 141 and 7 8. now what we need is both sides corner to corner to be identical so let's go from this corner to this corner and here we have 138 so clearly that is not Square you're gonna have to make it Square well let's try talking this outwards [Music] we're gonna have to split the difference so between one say 140 so it's like a four inch difference so honestly we have to move this out to one almost 140 before they're even close and this is the part that's kind of tricky and we skipped a step earlier by not doing a layout but hey maybe we don't have to so there's 139 and a half let's go to one 39 and three quarters there's that right there now let's check the other side see what we got now we have 140 and a half oh my gosh okay so then let's go to looks like we can get to like 140 and a quarter on each one so let's try that okay got 140 exactly let's keep going let's keep okay 140 and a quarter let's check the other side let's see here 140 and a quarter we did it it's perfectly Square all right now that it is perfectly Square let's uh start putting our joists in place and and screwing those in so first thing I'm going to do is bring them all in pile them up all right we'll start at the end here and work our way back we have our marks already laid out for us and we know that they're already cut to size so we can just Flex the wood in place sometimes the wood wants to be stubborn because it's a natural product we're going to wait to attach our Rim joist to the joist to make sure we don't have to steer anything before we do that so for now let's tag him into the beam and that's about it foreign this keeps everything honest on the marks and where we need them all right one at a time here's a pro tip you don't have to do this but I recommend it you want to Crown your joists now you want to see the crown is the outer part where the joist is going to be Bowing in a specific direction and you want to make sure the bow that's going up is going up in the air kind of like this that way gravity kind of self-corrects over time so you want to check them all for Crown as you're laying them out foreign [Music] now that they're all in place I'll screw them all down into the beams remember the X's we made that's the example the X goes the board goes over the X and up to the line that's how that's done If This Were a professional job your beam would be at least two ply thick and it would be eight inches high not six but this is a DIY job I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible in a way that will still be effective if you want to be on the safe side you can alternate you can do this side another screw on the other side the joists from Rolling if that would ever happen in a structure this size definitely not going to happen I do let's do this room joists into place okay then you're gonna come over here pull these screws out well that screw doesn't want to come out but you know what we don't we don't negotiate with that kind of nonsense all right so what we want is our two joists our Rim joists and our floor joists to be um flush so we'll just finger feel a little finger feel and then uh coming in [Music] same thing let it down or up with just one screw for now we're gonna go back and put two more in each one but this is just to get it nice and flush because we don't need our top of our Tech looking funny put your body weight on it there we go foreign we'll give this a little lift the flush we'll have to put an extra one in this one because of the way the screws behaved today [Applause] beautiful foreign okay we're almost there we'll do the same thing to the back [Applause] all right if the shims the composite ships you buy don't work you can just buy make yourself a pressure tree I'm not sure how DIY friendly that tip is but uh is probably the best solution in the case that we're in [Music] so two pieces of wood nice wedges okay then seal them up just because they're going to be under the deck and that white wood exposure will be the first thing to go so you seal those up there's no question that that's the best the best practice in this case if you can't give vinyl shoes now the cool thing about the tough block system it's got these little dimples these dots are actually raised above the grade that way water is more prone to run out of the tough block rather than into the tough lock so what I do with my shims as I alternate them I have one into the other snugs them right up if you want to tack something in just so they don't slide apart feel free grab a screw all right lock them in that's a great way to level Something On a Block like this there's no question about that compositions work too in this case you just pull them in alternating directions one here now the composition you can be sure that it won't rot but if you don't have access to that the pressure treated shim probably fine this through lock it in boom boom boom there you have it um and with that uh I think we're done and uh there you have it the frame is done wasn't that easy and to tie this back to the beginning of the series when I said that uh my backyard looked like a lumber yard and it was starting to make a mess and I had to get out here and get some work done so my boss AKA my wife could see the visual progress I was making in the yard now that we're done the job beautiful frame is done uh have a look at what I did to the yard funny enough it's actually in worse shape than it was when I came out this morning that's the joke that's what keeps marriage alive that's what makes it fun and I'm going to go inside now make a steak and sit down by the fire because it is the middle of Feb because I can't say Feb February or February I don't know what you want me to say so it's the middle of Feb it is the winter I'm in a t-shirt because it's about six degrees today and I enjoyed it so yeah have one last look at our little DIY frame we built that remarkably fast and uh it's going to be something to go into this blank canvas of a backyard we're going to slowly piece together thanks

Channel: Wood Bully

Views: 238,263

Keywords: Deck, How to deck, DIY deck, How to build decks, DIY deck build, Deck building, Fast deck, Easy deck, Carpentry, DIY, How to, carpentry, protip, woodworking, tools, powertools, shorts, foryourpage, decks, deckbuilding, carpenter, construction, fence, payattentionbrian, howto, diy, foryou, fyp

Id: 8zljVEx5ma8

Length: 35min 23sec (2123 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 20 2023