G'day and welcome back to Buildsum and this is gonna be the first in a series of videos on building a deck
So a deck is quite a simple structure to build
however, there are a few simple steps and
Common mistakes that are made that will reduce
the
Safety and the longevity of the deck and because it's so simple. There's something a lot of handyman or DIY
guys try to have a go at and so this is just going to take if you
through a
few things that you need to know
So in this first video we're gonna have a look at the requirements so every
Council and every local area all have their own different requirements
These are obviously for the ones in my area
But just to make you aware of some stuff that you need to know before you start and then we'll get into the actual construction
of the deck and designing and
Picking the materials and you know how things go together and then what you can do to actually make the deck last longer
So the first thing you need to check when you start to build your deck is what your local council requires
Now in my area which is Sydney and generally in New South Wales
There's different levels of development and you can do small decks
Less than 20 square meters and less 1m off the ground
You don't need to go through council, that would actually qualify as an exempt development
basically anything bigger than that or anything higher off the ground and that there are
Safety requirements that come into play and the council will need you to submit a development application
it may go as a complying development application or it may need a full a full application depending on
the size and the height of the deck, but just be aware that
Councils do have regulations and they're different for every council area. If you want to have a look at the one for New South Wales
I'll put this link up in the description at the bottom of the video
But there is that New South Wales government
website and
Documents that will give you all that information. So the first thing you need to do is check your council comments
Second thing is your bushfire requirements. If you are in a bushfire area, you will need to make sure that
You have the right materials for your deck. So we're going to talk a lot about treated timber in this series of videos
but that may not be
applicable or may not be accurate or
Acceptable in your area if you have a fairly high bushfire
Danger, so you need to check what bushfire area you are and that will determine
The materials that you can use for your deck
And the last requirement or the main requirement is termites so
The requirements for termites are that the deck must either be
constructed from naturally termite resistant Timbers in accordance with Appendix C in AS3660.1
So things like white Cypress pine and some of your hardwoods are naturally termite resistant, but obviously they're pretty expensive
And that may be if you are in a bushfire area, you may have to use some of those hardwoods
However the
Common
Alternative is the second point they're constructed from preservative treated timber in accordance with appendix D
AS3660.1
okay, so that's your
LSOP treated so your mainly H3 and H4
timber that you would be using
Because H3 is for external use and H4 for in contact with the ground. So they're the ones we commonly use
Or the other alternative is to have a termite barrier
that protects the primary building elements installed in accordance with
AS 3660.1 as well. Now the method that I'm going to show you sort of incorporates both of those. I always use
Preservative treated timber but I always also install the termite barrier as well
Pretty much because it's built in and it's not that hard to do
okay, so
What we're going to do next we're just going to move on I'll show you the
the piers and how the termite barriers work and then
the next little step in building the deck
G'day, I'm back
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