Floating deck

[af1212]

We are going to attempt a floating deck this spring.

Anyone done one and have pointers?

[macmars45]

My H did that in our TH (in a small loft that he wanted to utilize space as much as possible). It could fold down against the wall when needed. He mounted his computer monitors to the wall above the desk and had floating shelves to each side of the monitors to hold his hobby and work stuff. It was amazing and worked really well for him and utilized the space available to him really well.

ETA: make sure the wall can hold the weight of the desk wherever you want to put it. That's probably a no brainer. Also, he found his desk on Amazon if I'm not mistaken.

[af1212]

Mar 17, 2021 14:52:14 GMT -5 macmars45 said:

My H did that in our TH (in a small loft that he wanted to utilize space as much as possible). It could fold down against the wall when needed. He mounted his computer monitors to the wall above the desk and had floating shelves to each side of the monitors to hold his hobby and work stuff. It was amazing and worked really well for him and utilized the space available to him really well.

ETA: make sure the wall can hold the weight of the desk wherever you want to put it. That's probably a no brainer. Also, he found his desk on Amazon if I'm not mistaken.

Thanks! I’m actually asking about a deck. Like for outdoors. But this sounds cool!

[macmars45]

Mar 17, 2021 18:22:57 GMT -5 af1212 said:

Mar 17, 2021 14:52:14 GMT -5 macmars45 said:

My H did that in our TH (in a small loft that he wanted to utilize space as much as possible). It could fold down against the wall when needed. He mounted his computer monitors to the wall above the desk and had floating shelves to each side of the monitors to hold his hobby and work stuff. It was amazing and worked really well for him and utilized the space available to him really well.

ETA: make sure the wall can hold the weight of the desk wherever you want to put it. That's probably a no brainer. Also, he found his desk on Amazon if I'm not mistaken.

Thanks! I’m actually asking about a deck. Like for outdoors. But this sounds cool!

Reading fail *face palm* My bad. 

I know nothing about floating decks.

[nomad100]

I had one installed several years ago and couldn't be happier. The one thing I would say is that more footers were installed than I expected. I am in a cold climate so wasn't able to use the pier blocks like you see in some YT videos, they did poured concrete footers. I also had them install the deck boards with a slightly wider gap since we get so much rain and snow. Installer was going to butt the wood up against each other and I would have had whatever gap resulted when the wood shrank with age but I didn't like that so I ended up with pencil width gaps.

[af1212]

Mar 18, 2021 7:09:09 GMT -5 nomad100 said:

I had one installed several years ago and couldn't be happier. The one thing I would say is that more footers were installed than I expected. I am in a cold climate so wasn't able to use the pier blocks like you see in some YT videos, they did poured concrete footers. I also had them install the deck boards with a slightly wider gap since we get so much rain and snow. Installer was going to butt the wood up against each other and I would have had whatever gap resulted when the wood shrank with age but I didn't like that so I ended up with pencil width gaps.

Ohhh. What kind of climate? The whole reason my H is ok with this is because we would not be installing poured footers 😬.

And smart about the snow! I hadn’t thought of that wil keep in mind.

[nomad100]

af1212 , I am in Michigan where I get lots of lake effect snow/weather. My deck is pretty large. Like 12 x 30ish so that may also be the reason he went with concrete footers.

Here are a couple pics from when it was just finished.  photos.app.goo.gl/Jds4vqC5kmQc2uxf7  

[af1212]

Mar 18, 2021 10:43:05 GMT -5 nomad100 said:

af1212 , I am in Michigan where I get lots of lake effect snow/weather. My deck is pretty large. Like 12 x 30ish so that may also be the reason he went with concrete footers.

Here are a couple pics from when it was just finished.  photos.app.goo.gl/Jds4vqC5kmQc2uxf7  

Hmm ok we don’t get a ton of snow consistently (mid-Atlantic) but we can from time to time. I’ll look into it more.

This is what it says when I click your link -

Requested URL (https://photos.app.goo.gl/Jds4vqC5kmQc2uxf7%C2%A0%C2%A0) must be a parseable URI, but possibly incomplete to be a DynamicLink.

If you are the developer of this app, ensure that your Dynamic Links domain is correctly configured and that the path component of this URL is valid.

[nomad100]

af1212 , OK, so sharing a Google Photos album didn't work  Whoops.  

[af1212]

nomad100 wow that’s amazing!! Any idea of how much it cost or how many hours it took?

Also what kind of wood did you use and did you have to treat it?

[af1212]

And these are what we were planning to use instead of pouring concrete -

www.homedepot.com/p/7-3-4-in-x-10-3-4-in-x-10-3-4-in-Concrete-Deck-Block-100002709/204827028

[nomad100]

af1212, I am not sure how much that deck cost. I hired a guy who did several deck and fence replacement related projects (adding a better railing to an existing elevated deck, totally replacement of a small deck off my kitchen and adding stairs from that deck to the garden and this floating deck) and it was a lump sum for all the work. Plus this was back in 2016. But it must have been reasonable if I had all that work done.

Used pressure treated lumber, outdoor joist hangers, nails vs screws in the decking part, sealed at the end of that summer. TBH, other than pressure washing, I haven't done a thing to it since that sealing, though I will be sealing it again this year.

[af1212]

Mar 18, 2021 11:11:16 GMT -5 nomad100 said:

af1212, I am not sure how much that deck cost. I hired a guy who did several deck and fence replacement related projects (adding a better railing to an existing elevated deck, totally replacement of a small deck off my kitchen and adding stairs from that deck to the garden and this floating deck) and it was a lump sum for all the work. Plus this was back in 2016. But it must have been reasonable if I had all that work done.

Used pressure treated lumber, outdoor joist hangers, nails vs screws in the decking part, sealed at the end of that summer. TBH, other than pressure washing, I haven't done a thing to it since that sealing, though I will be sealing it again this year.

Ah I missed that someone put this in for you. Thanks for all of the tips. Anything you would change about size/shape/location?

[nomad100]

af1212, Nope. It has worked really well in that location. The one end is diagonal like that to mimic the shape of my patio and the deck on the other side of the patio. I can fit a lounger with side table and umbrella, a 6 person dining table and a wood holder for the portable firepit on this floating deck with plenty of room to walk around everything. I am really lucky because I have a lot of outdoor entertaining/lounging space in addition to this deck (a concrete patio and another, smaller (12x18ish) deck in my back yard.