A backyard deck, costs?

netwolf · #1 06-10-2009, 07:46 PM

Hi All,

I am consdiering put up some decking in the backyard for entertaining and use part of it to host a permanent pier.

How much does it cost to do this? Maybe about 10sqm.

Regards
Fahim

Lester · #2 06-10-2009, 07:58 PM

Hi Fahim, It will depend on the material used. Permapine I think is the cheapest, but hardwood can look good, plus the recycled plastic type which are both more expensive. Other things to think of are what hight off of the ground, supports and railing, plus stairs if required.

Once you have sorted all that out, shop around at different hardware shops for the best prices.

All the best.

norm · #3 06-10-2009, 09:35 PM

Hi Fahim,

Things to consider:

1. hardwood vs treated pine (arsenic free).
2. How far off the ground is it? This will alter the price slightly due to post lengths.
3. Will there be a railing around the deck?
4. Steps?
5. concrete for post holes. 20kg bag $7
6. Have you considered using metal decking parts for the posts, bearers?
4. paint

Hardwood decks look nice when new, but overtime fade and require yearly maintenance (oiling etc).

Cost - are you planning DIY ?

Norm

netwolf · #4 07-10-2009, 01:07 AM

Definetly not DIY, I am talking about getting one made.

Not very high of the ground but the yard is very uneven, Kind of slopes to one corner. Also I think there maybe a drain pipe running thourhg the middle so might need to check the plans to see if that is just my line or the line for the whole community. Usually they design to run the mains along the back fence. But I will check the plans to be sure. I am thinking of doing the area immedietly outside the back sliding doors, there is a small paved area that needs to come out.

Railings yes in some parts, and steps possibly depending on how far it goes out into the yard. I need to do a photo profile to check what the best pier location is. May have to do just a small deck for the Pier in one section and do another one for entertaining etc.

Do people who build them charge for comming out and giving a quote?

Regards
Fahim

Tandum (Robin) · #5 07-10-2009, 02:05 AM

Quotes are normally free so get a few, it's a good way to get different ideas on how to do it as well.

I was going to sling up a 2x2meter DIY deck around the pier here and materials alone came to almost $500.

troypiggo (Troy) · #6 07-10-2009, 07:37 AM

10sqm will not be big enough to entertain, let alone include a pier IMO. I'm assuming to entertain you're thinking of table, chairs as a min, maybe BBQ? There won't be much room left to walk around, might feel a little pokey.

It'd be heaps for a pier only I imagine.

As mentioned above, quotes should be free. I'd get at least 3, preferably more. With the market the way it is at the moment, you'll find prices vary a bit depending on who's quiet. You might jag a really good price, but wouldn't be surprised if you're up for $5k-$10k as a really wide ballpark budget.

Barrykgerdes · #7 07-10-2009, 11:44 AM

Back in the 1970's I built a deck on the back of the second storey extension, (I did have council approval). It was elevated about 12 ft from the ground so I made 3 and a bit stantions out of 3" water pipe with suitable mounting plates (made as a rabbit by the boiler makers at GI) for the base and the joists. I made reinforced footings from a few bags of sackcrete and scrap steel. The parts at 1970's prices was under $200 (I did use the old timber from the original roof). The deck area is about 25 sq metres

I did the job in a weekend with the help of my son. The builder could not get over it. He went home on Friday night with nothing showing bar the footings I did the previous week. When he came back on the Monday it was all finished. Getting the 3" x 9" 12ft beams onto the top of the stanchions was the hardest but I rigged a chain block to lift them.

Baz

Paul Haese · #8 08-10-2009, 12:00 AM

Ok I built a deck 9.24 sqm for my observatory. I got materials pretty cheap but all of it consisted of permapine. Materials alone came to over $1100 and that is without using more expensive decking like hard wood or permadeck etc. That did not include labour. Now for labour it would take 2 to 3 days to construct with two carpenters. I would expect a labour charge of around $120 per hour plus GST for two chippies. Slightly less if one is an apprentice or TA. It took me 2 days on my own, but I worked straight through breaks and I worked longer. So labour could be some where around $1920 to $2880 excluding GST.

It will cost more if you are using hardwood in terms of labour. It is harder to work with and requires a lot of pre-drilling. It may well take 4 days if the timber is really hard.

However somewhere around $3900 would be a practical starting point. Three quotes is definitely best. You may find with work being a little on the lean side at present that people will work for a lot less just to keep the bills paid.

Best of luck.

Ian Robinson · #9 08-10-2009, 04:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

Ok I built a deck 9.24 sqm for my observatory. I got materials pretty cheap but all of it consisted of permapine. Materials alone came to over $1100 and that is without using more expensive decking like hard wood or permadeck etc. That did not include labour. Now for labour it would take 2 to 3 days to construct with two carpenters. I would expect a labour charge of around $120 per hour plus GST for two chippies. Slightly less if one is an apprentice or TA. It took me 2 days on my own, but I worked straight through breaks and I worked longer. So labour could be some where around $1920 to $2880 excluding GST.

It will cost more if you are using hardwood in terms of labour. It is harder to work with and requires a lot of pre-drilling. It may well take 4 days if the timber is really hard.

However somewhere around $3900 would be a practical starting point. Three quotes is definitely best. You may find with work being a little on the lean side at present that people will work for a lot less just to keep the bills paid.

Best of luck.

Unless you are doing the slightly off ground deck yourself (in which case the labour costs are ZERO), then it's cheaper to pay a concreter to form up and lay a slab of concrete.
I had a quote in February of $1260 to form up and lay a 3.8m x 3.3m slab with a 380mm lip at the bottom end (my land has a slight slope on it.)

If you are doing a DIYS slightly off ground deck , you still need to do a solid concrete footing onto which either the tripod will be parked or you'll bolt the pier , unless you go for a concrete pier which means even more formwork and reinforcing.... add several hundred dollars to materials.

I'm starting to think that maybe a concrete slab surrounding but isolated from a 1 sqm x 0.5m deep concrete footing may be the best way to go for the floor of a ROR shed.
So long as it's shaded from direct sun , the concrete not be a thermal issue.

Plus , termites aren't very keen on concrete.

netwolf · #10 09-10-2009, 03:21 AM

I had a friend over today and i think it will be definetly more than my orginal estimate of 10sqm, more like 20-30 to make it worth while.
Well I am scrapping this idea for now, but I will ring around and get some quotes to get an idea of what it might cost down the track. I found a webpage where you can actually make such request for diffrent types of job, but i did not bookmark it. But looking around i saw quotes for other deck jobs around the 2000-3000mark for ~20sqm.

But maybe short term I will just go for a Perm Pier, with a Roll away Rubbmermaid (or similar shed). So that I can just have the Mount always ready to go. The c8 and WO 80mm are not all that much to carry out.

rider · #11 09-10-2009, 09:11 AM

sideways of topic,
but we hired a house in a dark sky site, setup the scope for south on the deck, and found that the goto was out by 20 degrees.
Nothing we tried would fix it. Next morning we went for a walk and looking up at the deck we realized that the wooden decking was on large RSJ's (rolled Steel Joists) which were aligned about 20 degrees east of south!
apparently my compass prefered them to the worlds magnetic field.

good luck with the deck Fahim

Ian Robinson · #12 09-10-2009, 01:32 PM

Netwolf,

I was considering a deck for entertaining on the back of the house (I wanted it 6m x 3m and about 1.6m off the ground) , I had a couple of builders quote to make it, one guy came back with a quote of about $14k and the other wanted near $20k) so , as you can imagine , I scrubbed the idea of paying someone to build a complete deck as I don't have that kid of money to put into it , and I don't want to take out a loan to pay for it.

I may ask another couple of builders to quote JUST THE STRUCTURE , and I'd do the rest myself in a year or two maybe when the builders aren't so snowed under building new houses for 1st home buyers and the !st Home Buyers' Grant is teenyweeny again. They might be more interested in these types of small home improvements or in doing the structural stuff for my entertainment deck then and not have such a big markup.

Can't be that hard or expensive to buy 6x 3m long treated pine logs (long enough to be incorporated into the handrails), some quikset concrete in bags, and some 6m long or 3m long hardwood (?) 2"x6" planks to use to make a frame structure with cross beams, and then nail down some decking planks and put some stanless steel cable up between the logs or cut some pine beams as hand rails , to stop people from walking off the deck.

IF you come across the website you mentioned I'd like to look at it ,so please post the URL. (will be in your Explorer History folder from when you when opened the URL).

netwolf · #13 09-10-2009, 04:19 PM

Rudder, kind of similar experience that apoman(Pete). kal(Andrew) and I had at apoman's place. We had tried a few times to get polar aligned and alwasy seemd to be just off. Finally Pete did the solar noon sundial stick thing and painted the shadow line. I kept telling them lets just trust the sun and they kept trusting the compa in the end the shadow line was spot on. The reason may have had something to do with the buzzing High Voltage Power lines les than half a km away was concluded to be the source of the compas error, but not sure. Even the electronics compas was off.

pjphilli (Peter) · #14 10-10-2009, 11:50 AM

Netwolf
Just a couple of points. I attached a sturdy wooden pier to a nine inch brick footing of my existing deck after a cutout in the decking to ensure no coupling to the pier from the deck. Use good brick anchor bolts and slosh construction glue at the joint to ensure a rock solid connection. This works well but just a tip - save the bits you cut out of the deck in case you have to replace them sometime as I did when I moved the pier to another deck location.
Cheers Peter