How to Build a simple Ground level Deck in a weekend

Let's go see what the smart kid has to say. Try to pound on the low side. 53. And that is a lie. Whatever. That fan is nice. Whatever. You want me to get it for you? Shut up. Good morning, guys. Well, it's a brand new day and we're starting a brand new project. We're actually going to be installing a ground level deck. Now, this deck actually might be a little bit more than ground level. In fact, we had to do a lot of digging to get below the bottom of this deck so we could get the right elevation set. So, we're going to show you exactly how we do this project and take you along for the ride. What lumber we use, what materials we use, what tools we use, and how we build it coming up next. So, what are we waiting for? Let's build a ground level deck. When we're building a ground level deck is we want to get air below the deck. We don't want the deck to actually sit and be suffocated by the air underneath it. So, we've got to establish an elevation. Now, this is our deck elevation right here. This board is setting everything up. You can see how much we dug below it so that we could get just that a little bit of breathing room established for the deck. All right, Frank, you got to you got to tell me about your markings. That's how many wheelbarrow loads I took out of here. 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55. So I took out about 60 65 loads out of here. And I'm talking big wheelbarl. That That'd be a small load right there. And the worst part, I just got done buying three electric wheelbarls. You don't bring me one. If I would have known, there would have been two up here and I would have been here with you. Frankie, you want to walk us through what your idea is here? Well, I'm going to run another one string straight out from the house out. Okay. Then I'm going to put a center like a center beam here. So then we only got to put our our blocking, our slant blocks, our patio blocks here and on the end. So, the stoop we're leaving in place and we're going to be going right over the top of it because we have enough height from the door to the concrete. So, the decking will actually rest right on top of it. Yeah. I'll I'll tapcon it down against the house. Okay, Frankie. Here's a fun fact. Maybe I can actually teach Frankie something that he didn't know. That doesn't happen very often, though, does it? Oh, yeah. But I think I think he's being nice now. Green treated wood when you cut it, you're supposed to um condition the ends of the cut and every time you drill into it. I mean, honestly, who's going to take the time to do it? That's how they just get out of their warranty. That is that's all that is. I was actually asked, why don't I ever build timber retaining walls? And I won't build a timber retaining wall because timbers have a lifetime warranty. But when you look at the fine details and print, the warranty is null and void if you cut the timber or if you put a spike into the timber. So, how are you supposed to use them? You're supposed to just hope gravity holds them in place. I don't know. I don't I don't get it. That's just a warranty thing. That's all that is a warranty thing. So, they're protecting their own butt. So Frankie, we've got a double frame around the outside. Again, when I say again, we've done this in other videos, in case you haven't seen another video. This is how Frankie makes his ends instead of just having them butt two ends butt up. He overlaps them like that. Gives them better strength. Yep. So, if you want to see a finished end over here, you can actually see exactly how he does that. Now, the exterior always has to be double framed. So, everything gets a joist hanger on this run. Yeah. On both sides. Both sides. Yeah. All right, guys. So, when you're hanging your joist, you got to make sure that everything matches up. We want to make sure that our boards or joists are actually not crooked. So, we actually mark a square line all the way around them. So, once we know we're set, then we can put the joist hanger in place. Now, it gets to be a little tricky if you're working by yourself to get your wood in place, to get your joist hanger up, and then to get it screwed in place and to keep everything stable cuz they just don't have three hands. So, one of the tricks that seems to work pretty good is you take your joist hanger and just give it a little bit of a squeeze. Then when you pop it up, it'll stay without you having to screw around with it. [Music] There you go. Uh, hey Frankie, we're picture framing this deck because we're using composite wood. Can you actually build one of these decks without picture framing them? I don't see why not. if you ain't scared of if you ain't scared of looking at your ends. So, what Frankie's actually talking about is when you're working with composite. So, you got a finished side here, but look at the end. The end is not finished the same as the top. And so, the only way to hide that is by picture framing it down here. So, you can see by bringing these two together, then we run our boards into it. You can never see any exposed sides. So there's actually with using composite, there's a few more steps involved because picture framing takes longer. So if you're in a rush to get your deck done, I wouldn't say that this is the way to go. But if you're not in a rush, if you want good you want to use good material, then you'd use this stuff. I mean, cuz this is this is the best stuff I've ever ever felt for your feet, period. Hands down. Now, here's a question. Doesn't just using moisture shield because you have to hide the screws add a little bit of time? No, it adds a lot of time. That's part of it. That's a great question, Xander. So, if you see what Frankie is doing there, you see these clips that he's got going on, these clips. So, he can screw the first holes and then we can hide that with a heat gun. So, that takes time. This goes tight. Then we put the fa we face nail the front of it. Okay. And then we put start our clips from here back. Start. Okay. So, then our clips go in place and everything else gets clipped and not nailed. I think the initial cost and the extra time is offset by no maintenance after the fact. Can't span that whole thing. You can't just run your joist, your single joist all the way across. We're using a double joist as a ground level deck. We've got this center joist supported by blocks. We're not digging footings in cuz we don't need to where we're at. We just don't need to do that on this deck. But then we're actually using moisture shield uh product as part of the blocking. All right. So Xander, you had a great question. How do you do this? Because we're actually below grade. We're actually going to be building uh a wall right here. I think we're going to use railroad ties, aren't we, Frankie? But I don't want to see them. So, we're actually going to top it with moisture with this stuff with moisture shield cuz that'll blend into the decking and it'll also help it from rotting. So, this is the foundation of a house. The sill plate is actually anchored into the concrete. So, here's one. So, it's drilled in and then this is actually anchored into the actual concrete. That's a special anchor bolt. Are we rolling? Yeah. You want to back up? I have no clue when Xander's rolling or not, but he's a dang good cameraman, you guys. Xander, show yourself on the camera. You may see him once in a while. All right, guys. We're going to put in a clip. I'm going to show you the fast and easy way. Uh we're also going to show you how not to put in a clip cuz it's easy to get it screwed up. So, all you simply do is you slide the clip in, push it all the way forward. Once you get it in place, That's it. That's how these connect in every single joist. Run them down. Well, you see he's got the the where the splice where the two boards come together. Yeah. He doesn't have that quite right. So, that's got to be tapped in so that every otherwise it's going to throw everything else off. If we don't fix this now. Yeah. It's going to be a big this board. Yeah. And if this was a big deck, it would be a big issue. So, we got to We're going to do it right. We might as well tap that in. Yeah. And then we can secure that board. But one thing we're doing while we're securing the boards, we start at one end, get that secured, get it set, and then tap the rest of it in because it's not just going to slide in and magically just set perfectly for you. All right, guys. Instead of trying to describe how to set a board after we have all the clips in place, we're just going to show you. So, we get ited up tight here. We get one end set. If you're going to pound on the board, don't pound where you're going to clip it. Try to pound on the low side and the back side. Better yet, use a brace. Basically, you get one end set. So, this is the right joint spacing. I'm looking at the clip right there. I can see it. Lift up. I'm going to get this one set. And then Xander will get his end set. If I tap here before he's set, I'm just going to knock his stuff out of whack. So, we'll let him get set and then we'll tap everything in place. So, can definitely be a twoman job. All right. So, you can see we we're we kind of got this weird wiggle in it. We'll fix that. That can get fixed just by tightening it up. And I'm going to do the Frankie trick where I uh angle the screw heads in. I don't go straight up and down. I'm going to angle them into the clip. That'll also tighten them up as much as I can get them to tighten up. [Music] Hold on, smart kid. I'm a smart kid. Now, on this joist, we have two boards butdding up against each other. Yep. Resting the weight of the end of the boards on the joist. So, we don't want to put a clip in on the end. Or else then you'd have to slide the next board into that clip or have to clip it twice or not have a clip on that board. So, you put the clips, you put both boards in and then you clip it. You clip both boards at the same time. Yeah, that was a good point. [Music] Now it's time. You got to be really careful. Very much now at all. Don't even let it rest on it. Yeah, it isn't much of a piece. We figured we were pretty level, but we're not. Actually, when you come from this board to this board, there's just this ever slight rise right here. Okay? And it's just too much, too noticeable, too soon. So, we're going to pop this board out and we're going to take a grinder and we're going to grind this concrete off cuz here's our framing. We're just going to grind this concrete off so that we got a better transition up. We're not going to grind this entire pad. We're just going to grind the transition joint so it's just not a toe stopper. One step forward, two steps back sometimes. [Music] Hey Sander. Yeah. touch this. How is it? Little warm, not hot. Not like I'd expect it to be for today. That's a Makita uh grinding wheel and a Makita uh grinder. And what happens is is actually the the hot part of the wheel is is cut off. It's leaving the cold part behind. So instead of the wheel heating up, the material heats up. That technology has been around for a long time, but it's still kind of cool, isn't it? It's really cool. Yeah. All right, Xander and I are coming to our last board. Yeah. And it comes up to the door. Which one are you taking off? This probably this one here. I'll have to put a SL or cut in it and take it out. Why won't you just cut a sliver board for right here? Cuz there's a belly in this board. Oh, there's a belly in this board. This board. So, I will I'll just recut it. Yeah, you guys can set this one. This board right here will get finishing screws cuz if we put clips we couldn't set well the next board very well and the last board. So all right Frankie face screw in it. But that's okay cuz then we can use the heat gun and we can get rid of those. Every third one Frankie. Yeah. I'm going to go on the other side of this. [Music] That fan is nice. Now, this is the piece that we cut down to fit the last piece in the door. And what are you using to shave to get the knock the shavings off, Ricky? Just a planer. Just a hand planer. Yeah, I can kind of bullnose it a little bit, you know. Yep. So, that piece goes right in here. Okay. So, we got the spacers in here. So, the detail work that's left is just tapcon cuz there's concrete below below this. So, we got to secure these in place. I got to do put a shim here just to push it over a little bit and then to get this one lined up. Okay. And then that's about and then go around the outside. Then we'll touch up this stuff here. And what are we going to do with this shower? Turn it on. Wash the dick a little bit. [Music] So, we got to build the surround. All right, guys. Well, we have a lot more projects going on here. We tore that whole roof off. It's about that took us about what 3 hours, Andrew. Something like that. Yeah. So, we got a lot done today, but uh hope this video's helped you guys out to learn how to install your own very own ground level deck. We're going to be doing a little bit of touch-up work building a wall on the outside of this thing yet. But, uh you see the basic structure how it goes in with this Moisture Shield product, how to picture frame everything. Hope this video's helped you out. Let me know in the comments down below if there's anything else you'd like to see and I'll see if I can uh do it for you. God bless.