How We Did This Custom Deck and Overhang Build

I’m happy to share this post of a custom deck we did in Portland, with a custom overhang for architectural interest, as well as shade and comfort. We did a brand new deck build over an existing deck that was there but it wasn’t quite out as far and it really wasn’t as sound. See the video below for details.

Moving a Deck, Adding A Deck

You can see they had old scarring for where stairs used to be. The deck was significantly smaller, the owner wanted to expand it and put an overhang on it and then also install a hot tub so that’s that’s exactly what we did.

We lowered the ledger a little bit compared to what it was if you look closely, you can see that how much lower compared to the door line from where it was is significantly lower. We did that for water runoff, minimum code is going to be 1.5 inches from an interior surface drop to an exterior surface so this is a little bit above code but we wanted to make sure the water runs off.

Trex Deck And Secure Footings

Over time we don’t want to have to deal with water damage so we’ve got the the Trex decking boards that we put up on top and this is one of our most popular products. As you can see on the underside we did some additional frame bracing for her hot tub that she has going in here and our foundation for the deck was magnificent.

So a lot of people especially decking contractors, in my opinion, they really don’t put big enough footings in. If you do real engineering calculations and you do your numbers on math for wind up, load, seismic, typically speaking footings for large overhangs and decks like this need to be three, four, or five feet deep.

These are three by three by four piers that were put in and we just have a long line of them here with basically six by twelve pressure treated beams and then six by six posts that are all put in here. This carries the actual load of the deck and the entire overhang is a gorgeous design I’ve done a couple of times with four skylights in the middle and then we’ve got some glue lams that are attached into the house.

We have what you call “point load framing” that’s why this siding is all tore up right there you have to actually slip in a post to be able to help carry the load of the overhang where it’s actually attached to that French door is what we centered it around.

Deck Design: Tying Into The Home And Roof

Design wise people pay a lot of money for designers to come in and tell you design information like that but the entire overhang was basically centered around the door to really give it some symmetry

The roof is brand new, we just went ahead and did that. The gutter is something that always has to be considered; a lot of contractors mess that up but we’re gonna to go in and put some new gutters on this whole back run in order to handle all the water flow properly.

Up here on the actual main deck this is the section where you have to effectively make sure you cut in to be able to give it something to support the load that goes down and transfers all the way.

A lot of times deck contractors will just connect this here and there’s nothing actually holding it in the wall which is obviously pretty bad. For skylights, anytime that you have these rafters come down there’s a mechanical connection to the actual beam here it’s a 8.2.5 hurricane clip so straps to the rafter that has a mechanical connection to the actual beam.

Anytime that you have these overhang builds you have to use this and then you have a reverse u-shaped bracket which is actually holding the beam to the wall and then holding it to the point that’s on the inside there.

All the siding is going to have to properly be woven back in. There is also the deck metal that’s used underneath the board so the last project that we were just on we were showing off the deck metal over the top, well this one once we slip in a board as you can see here you’re not going to have that metal that’s showing. Double metal is a proper installation for decking, so by the time that you get this board all the way in here you’ll have a piece of “L” metal that will cut down over the top of this board and that double flashing is what makes sure when you get wind driven rain you’re not going to have an issue with ledgers.

One of the main reasons the decks fail is because of this ledger board, because of this board that’s right underneath the metal. This French door is pretty gorgeous, I’m personally a really big fan of doing these, I put several of them in my own house, I think they massively increase not only the amount of light that come in but it just makes everything a lot more inviting.