JoistLedger

The deck does not break. The connection to the house lets go, all at once, usually with people standing on it.

Bolts through the side of a post look solid and carry the load in shear on the fastener. The code wants the weight sitting on wood.

Deck quotes vary more within a town than between states, and this table shows why: carpenter pay ranges 45% across the country but only lands on 55% of the bill.

Deck cost per square foot falls as the deck grows, then height undoes it. A tall 12×16 can cost more than a ground-level 16×20.

Railing is priced per linear foot and specified by code. Most of the cost difference between quotes is which of the two rules the builder read.

There is no single correct gap. There is a correct gap for a board that is going to shrink and a different one for a board that is going to grow.

Stairs fail inspection more often for being uneven than for being too steep, and the tolerance is three eighths of an inch across the whole flight.

Resurfacing saves roughly half the cost of a rebuild, provided the frame underneath has more life left than the boards you are about to screw to it.

A beam span table has two inputs, and the one people forget is the joist span the beam is carrying. Read it with one input and the answer is wrong by feet.

Footing size is one division: the load a post carries, divided by what the soil under it can hold. Both numbers are published, and neither is the one people guess.

The frame is a third of a deck's cost and the part nobody itemises. Here it is, line by line, for a deck you can scale from.

The permit is rarely the expensive part. The unpermitted deck discovered during a sale is, and that bill arrives at the worst possible moment.

The 8 ft line is where 4×4 stops. Above it the question is not only size but bracing, and the connection at each end matters more than the post between them.