About the deck

**This post will be pretty boring for anyone who is not Dy or is not contemplating building a new deck. Sorry**

A few years ago, our deck fell off the house. It really did. It was nailed to our sill with flashing what-so-ever. The sill rotted. (That wood was supposed to hold up the whole house) and the deck came loose. Thankfully, it was only a 4 feet off the ground. That's when we discovered that not only did the deck not have footers but that the posts were just sitting on the ground.
ZD picked up the deck and moved it.

Very scary after the fact.

So we built a new deck.
After the house was jacked up and 18 feet of double sill was replaced.

New deck:
No nails at all. We used only bolts and screws. Each part of the deck is removable.

18 feet by 20 feet.
Completely over engineered. . Bolted to the house (not nailed) with 24 six inch lag screws. Flashed with nice big washers to make sure the holes do not strip.
We made sure that the joint across the span was not at the door that we use to get on the deck. (Previous deck had a joint at the high traffic area...bad plan.)

Double joists every 6 feet for the decking to sit squarely on. 1 inch deck boards with way more screws than needed.

We did two beams with four posts per beam. The beams are double thickness.
All posts have poured footers and are bolted in with galvanized post holders. (We set a j shaped bolt in the concrete and then attached the post holders.)

Then the entire deck has a 2 foot cantilever. This allows me to plant under the deck and hides the posts holding it up. The only problems with this was the railing. The posts holding the deck are not part of the railing in any way. (I see that Dy's old deck...the posts are part of the railing. Our posts are way under the deck.)

But this made installing the decking really easy. No posts to cut around.
The posts for the railing are bolted onto the deck and the rails were screwed into place. The rail was designed to have a 6 inch wide cap on it but .... well....that has happened yet. It will happen though.

Oh...on our railing....the bottom rail lets the pickets float above the decking. There is a 3 inch gap between the bottom rail and the pickets. That's so I can blow off the deck without all the crap getting caught by the pickets. You have to make sure the rail is set in though....or the kids will try to fit through that little gap.

Thing I wish we had done differently:
I wish we had left the rail posts higher than they are. That way we could put a nice decorative top on the post and put the cap rail between the posts.
I wish we had left a few posts very tall for a bird feeder or hanging plants. (To over hang the deck.
Also, I really wish we had not waited to stain it.

But I do love our deck.

Any other questions? Anybody have any other ideas for Dy's new deck? What about your own deck. What do you like and what is a really bad idea?