G'Day and welcome back to Buildsum and in this video we're continuing with the series on building a deck and in this one
I'm just gonna start looking at a deck that's actually built at ground level basically
Okay, so the past couple of videos we've looked at decks that are off the ground and we can get a termite barrier in
So this deck we're definitely not going to be able to get a termite barrier in so therefore it has to be
constructed out of termite resistant materials
The other big factors have to think about when doing a deck on ground is one
Ventilation so you want a as much air flow underneath the building as you can underneath the deck as you can and
Also drainage you don't want water ponding or pooling underneath the deck
so with this
Technique there's a couple of a little bit of ground work to do. So the first thing I would do is I would
excavate or remove all the topsoil and actually dig down about
50 to a 100mm in the
Entire area that you're planning on putting the deck in
Okay, get rid of all the loose topsoil. That'll help your even everything off
And then what you're gonna do is you're gonna put in a waterproof membrane. So this is the
used to be all traditionally orange
200 micron thick builders plastic. Basically, you can get black stuff now
So we just put a layer of that under the deck. So that's going to stop any moisture coming up out of the ground
and into
That area. Okay. It's also gonna help a little bit of the drainage
We're then going to top that up with a good draining material. So some coarse sand
Crusher dust
May be in some really fine recycled concrete just something that's going to let the water drain away
and it's not going to
Hold the moisture just so it doesn't hold the moisture under that deck
Okay, and that'll also give us a really good chance to get that area under the deck all nice and level
And preferably sloping away
To a low point, so water does run
Away from underneath their building
Okay, so then we have our bearers. got two options with our bearers
first one is
concrete
plinth's or concrete bearers
just long strips of concrete laid on the ground now, obviously that's going to take a bit of work to
Set up
and you know, that's
a little bit of concrete to mix probably not enough to get a truck in and a lot to mix by hand
So that that seemed like a problematic system to me and the other system is just to use sleepers
so short lengths of
H4 treated timber so if you get in the timber yard and get some of the landscaping type sleepers
That are made for contact with the ground and used for retaining walls. You can use those
So they just get laid on the flat on the ground
Okay, and I would nail them well screw them together or put a gangnail on them so they don't want to separate
And they're going to provide the bearers
For our for our job. So the distance apart is the same as in the other
In the other video is dependent on the joists. If you're going to use would be how far apart you would put those
particular bearers and again, you probably look at
about 1.5
Maybe up to 2m if you want to use a bigger joist
Okay, so there's our bearers so can either use concrete or a timber sleeper on
This nice draining level surface
Okay again, we've got to remember our rules with our actual
framing
Can't have anything within
25mm of our wall, so we actually have a gap that the termites
Well, they're seen if they do cross it they can cross it but they'll be seen all right and then we can put in our
Put in our joists
Okay. So again, they're running continuously depending on the size of your deck
okay, pretty standard we can put in our
Protective covering again making oh the joy sir a 25mm off the wall
But in our joist protectors to stop the water ponding on top and
Then our decking can go on again. The decking has to finish
no closer than 10mm to the wall and
again, as I said in the last video if you can actually set these first three or four boards up
So they're just screwed in so if you want to have a look under your deck
you can actually pull those up just unscrew them pull them up and
You know
You can have a look and see if there's been any termite activity under your deck every six to twelve months just to make sure
The other option is to panelise the deck, so if you build little panels
May be sort of a 1m to 1,200 wide and sort of yeah same sort of thing 1m to 1,200 long
Then you can actually lift them up
And have a look under the deck just to make sure there's been no more termite activity or any termite activity
Okay, so that's another option. You can just penalize you can make them off
you know somewhere else in the yard and drop those panels in the only problem is you're gonna have heaps of
Cut marks or cut lines in the deck. So, you know, maybe you want to make them go alternate ways or funny patterns
All right, but you can do that as well. And that means you can pull them out and inspect them for termites
All right. So there you go. That's the last video on building a deck.
Hope you enjoyed it
G'day, I'm back
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