How to build a deck onto your house

Building a porch or deck onto your house can be an easy project that anyone can accomplish given the right know-how, tools, patience and maybe a little help from some handy family members. Possibly having a side door installed in the side of your garage and then building a porch from the door down to the lawn will create a new entryway that may make it possible to go out and not have to open your big garage doors every time.

Adding a full fledged deck onto your house will be a great project but is one that will require a lot more work than a simple 5 foot square porch off of an entry door in your house. Decks are super additions onto your house that can be simple or complex. The varieties are endless when adding a deck onto your house and will create a whole new area for you to enjoy for years to come.

To start with, let's just describe the elements of adding a simple 5 foot square porch onto the side of your house coming out of an entry door. Most entry doors are about 36 inches wide or 3 feet so a five foot porch offers some space on either side to allow for some extra manuvering room.

Buying the wood will come after you have measured how large of an area you want your porch to cover. Getting pressure treated wood or wood that has been protected in some manner against the elements will help your porch last for many years. At the end of your project some protective stain or paint would also be a good idea.

To decide how much wood you may need is pretty easy to do. You will need 2 5 foot sections against the house to act as a securing plate to connect your porch to the house. Getting 3 other 5 foot sections will create the outside box frame of your porch. Getting 4 more 5 foot sections will make the interior cross pieces to strengthen under the floor of your porch. By buying 10 foot long 2x8 boards you may cut them in half to get your 5 foot long sections. So far we are up to 4 and 1/2 10 footers.

You will also need to buy 1x6 floor boards to go on the floor of your porch, the section you actually walk on. If your porch is 5 feet wide you will need 5 10 foot long 1x6 boards which will be cut in half. Getting an extra board is never a bad idea in case one of the boards is not of good quality. You will also need 4 4x4 posts for the corner posts on the porch. Getting another 1x6 can create a nice flat railing top that will be your hand rail on either side of the porch. Some 1x1 ballasters will go up and down under the railing board to complete the railing.

As well as all the material above, if there is a step or two needed you will need to buy the material needed to make a little frame, put the floor boards on that and have some cross memebers. Each step should be a little less than 2 floor boards wide.

Getting all your material with some screws will enable you to put your project together. Connecting your plate to the wall of your foundation will require either a Hilti gun or some concrete screws to attach it. Look in your home improvement store to find these materials.

Putting the deck together is quite easy by following the design we laid out for figuring your materials. Keeping all the edges square is the one big key that you will need to stick to in order to come out with a nice looking addition onto your house.

Decks get easier to build as you experience more projects and do the process more than once. Helping a friend build his deck will teach you some things and show you maybe what not to do when you build yours. Enjoy the process, recruit a handy friend or family member and you'll see how easy it can be.