Updated 4-3-23
Phil is working to repair and improve a deck. They walk you through the job step-by-step.
⏱️⏱️Chapters⏱️⏱️
00:00 You missed us moving the rafters they had up for support
00:30 Doing straight rails today
00:54 Measured between the 2 4×4’s
01:50 He set the pole off to the side so he could set the support
02:55 Phil’s been married long enough to know it’s always his fault
03:42 You can set it caveman style with a piece of wood
04:40 Fastening the 4×4 support
06:30 Getting the support level.
07:15 He likes the handrails at 30″ where you can sit down and see over
08:15 We’re going to assume people are smarter than falling over your handrail
08:25 Cut a 28 1/2 inch 4×4–video done to here
09:10 First support for the handrail
11:32 Thing about screws.
12:10 How he will cut the rail out for step area
13:40 Cutting the posts
14:00 Had to change the cut because of floor joists
19:00 Cutting the support for the railing
20:30 Changing the depth of the saw
21:30 Notching out the 4×4
23:30 Fun of cutting in a notch
26:20 How to protect wood when you need to beat it into place
27:55 Marking the other side of the porch
28:25 How he marks things when he’s working by himself
29:30 Cutting the rails
31:00 They cut the rail tight
33:20 Installing the top rail
36:10 Putting the rails up on the other side
38:15 Even pros mess up, they just fix it
39:00 Moved on to the next rail
41:54 Cut off or grabbed the wrong side of the board.
45:00 Next railing section
50:24 Installing the handrails
50:35 Porch is running downhill, but they are going to raise it up
50:46 May need to notch the handrails
54:15 How he notched in the railing
55.00 Lunch time for them
55:45 Fixing his mess up on the rail support
58:00 Old timers called the level a whiskey stick
59:45 Putting in the rails over there
1:00:00 Need to cut the rail shorter
1:03:50 Adjusting the rails
1:05:30 Putting the last 2×6 on top rail
1:07:00 Why he puts the rail height at 30″
1:07:18 Putting the slats into the rails
1:08:20 Measure each and mark your wood
1:10:25 Measuring the slats
1:11:18 Run screws at an angle
1:11:45 If it wants to split on you
1:13:25 Raising up the end of the porch
1:13:38 Using a lever
1:14:30 Putting blocks under the porch
1:15:16 Trying to decide if the moved it up enough
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Transcript:
Hi, guys. You missed a little of the action we got in a couple of days ago. We moved the, they had a rafter out here. There was support there was running through and then sticking off to the sides. It looked kind of ugly. But then there was another one here that was notched it was sit on top of a bench. We took all that off, moved it, where it’s directly underneath.
Or on top of the supports, wouldn’t count on the bench that eventually sagged, uh, to do that, we’re going to do straight rails today and we’ll take you along the ride with us. First thing we’re going to do is put in another four by four service temporary pole a little more, a little prettier if we do something similar to what we already have and then we’ll do the two bys in between the four by fours. So we’ll show you a along the way.
What we’ve done right now is measure between these two four by fours and is exactly 15 foot which is kind of neat. Um halfway would be seven foot six. I’ve made this mark here to the center, and everything’s going to be an inch away so center would be inch and three quarters to each side. So it’s going to be right here.
Now we’ve got to measure from here to the beam and we’ll get a measurement. Then we’ll, I purposely set this one off to the side so that we can put this in 79 5/8. So that’s what we’re doing now, is cutting 79 and 5/8. He’s on the camera, not behind the camera, now.
“Now. If it doesn’t end up straight I’m going to say it’s your mark.”
It’s my fault. I’ve been married for many years. I already know. I’ve been trained. It’s my fault. And if I say something in the woods and a woman doesn’t hear it, it’s still wrong. Do you need a hammer?
“Yep. You going to caveman?”
You been dancing long.
“Uh… Not with men usually.”
Not used to that.
“It throws me off. The little height difference.”
Movies instead of. I can do the caveman style before he gets back. I’ll make him… Hey, get a level.
“All right. When in doubt get a big piece of wood.”
Your right. In more instances then one okay I think that piece of wood up there is keeping us off, but you can fasten the bottom and put the screws on the bottom.
“Oh, and take that out.”
And then take that out, level.
“Level everything up.”
More plum it.
“Yeah, whatever.”
Supposedly level this way. We’ll fasten with three, two and a half, three screws.
“Pass another screw.”
I’m over qualified for that.
“Oh man, that’s. Let me get it square here.”
See that? Have to go over that way.
“I could have bring a hammer or something to smack against the wood.”
You can do that.
“I’m denting the real.
You’re welcome to use bam bam.
“The level?”
More. You can knock it a little bit more. It’ll be much better. Just go this way a little bit. A little more. Right there is where we want it.
“Yep.”
Now we’re going to go over here and like staying an inch back from the edge. Unlike a lot of places, people I like a third handrail, like 30 inches. Where you can sit down. Put your elbow on it, sit on it.
Be in your living room, look over it. But if you’re 42 inches, which is here, plus some area underneath a couple inches, at least, I like five or six, it’d be 45 inches, you set on your couch, or you set in here you have to stand up to be able to look over your handrail. What’s the purpose in that? The only thing I think of, the reason you would have a handrail that high that if you had either somebody really stupid or drunk, they wouldn’t fall over.
But we’re going to assume people are smarter than that. So we’re going to do a 30 inch rail, top height. That’ll mean a 28 and a half to the top of the 4×4. And I’ll show you why. So we’re gonna cut a 28 and a half inch piece over there 4×4. Give me that speed square. Keep you moving that’s good for the film.
“If that was the case I could hop on one leg.”
There’s always something watch. You know like in a fish aquarium.
“Oh, I’m starting to get hungry.”
You smell sewer or something.
“It might be.”
Put that over there. Fasten on the bottom, fasten on the sides. And there’s a mark up there. That’s the thing about screws. You can back them out and do it again. That’s you wish you could do life that way. But it’s not that way. And you do it right the first time. So that one’s set up. We’ve got one more over here.
And effectively what I’m going to do. If you come over here with the camera. there’s a floor support right here, steps right here. So what I want to do is cut all this out where the side of this is and notch it down. So the 4×4 will actually be seven inches, five and a half, 5 and 5/8 to be seven and seven and eight longer than 28 and a half.
So that would be 35 and 5/8, but we’ll have a seven and an eighth inch notch and we’ll cut this section out and go down in here and then I can fasten on both sides from this way, and from this way and from this way and give this 4×4 standing out in the middle of nowhere, something of a support. But we’ll have to cut with a 4×4. I mean, 4×4, Sawzall all through here, and cut all this out. So, it’ll slide down in there. That’s good. 35 and 5/8. You got the cord over here? Right beside that, and right beside all the way down.
“On the box now.”
Three and three quarters is all you can go. So, I’ll have to cut it. You hit the floor joists right there. So yeah. So what you’ll have to do is cut an angle over to this corner and the angle over to this corner.
“Okay. So I’m pretty sure that is cut the way you want.”
All right let’s cut this off here. Bring your cord over here. We’ll end up using the Sawzall, too.
“Take the Sawzall and notch it?”
Over there. So this is gonig to be one and 7/8. Which you can do with a speed square, but then we’re cutting out 7 1/8. This is all drywall habits. Let’s check the depth on the saw.
“Deep.”
One and 7/8.
“We’re at, um, a quarter and a half. We’re there.”
Take a Sawzall and cut straight down that. That’s one side, it must not be square, but it’s close.
“So I must…”
Oh no.
“I went to…”
You get to laugh anyway. All right. Take some off the side here. Let’s lay it down. You can get up here. Okay, then we got a it’s got to be cut down. One side for three inches. So, got to cut half inch off.
“Of one side.”
Yeah. This will be like this.
“Yeah.”
This side over here is going to be cut off because we don’t have enough depth this way.
“Oh, lovely.”
So if you use your saw. Let me do it.
“Big foot coming to get us. He’s saying you’re taking too long to go to lunch.”
Sasquatch saw me as nobody believes in. Let me cut through here a little bit more. Then we’ll take the Sawzall and clean it up. Take it over to the Sawzall and…
“Run the blade back down it.”
It should clean up.
“Two males don’t work.”
I’ve been saying that for a long time.
“You need a female.”
Clean it up. All right, it ends up being odd looking shape.
“See if I cut everything right. You need the bam-bam?”
Yeah. Just take it down. Ok let’s drive it over down here. Screw all that together.
“Yep. Yeah. All right, there you go.”
Right there. that’s pretty good. Okay, fasten that all the way. Fasten it from underneath here.
“Ya.”
And over here.
“That way it’s all tied together.”
What I’ve done is marked seven inches up, which is lots of room to snow off, push leaves off, hose off. And tell you another little something, something the 2×4 is going to go above this and 2×4 is going to go below this. It’ll be the center. So when I’m working by myself. I put a screw right there, I’ll measure the length in between here and set that end and fasten it from sides with the screws. But in this case I’ve got plenty of help, but working by myself I can do that.
“She’s pretty sturdy.”
Ok 2×4’s. Can you set the saw up? That goes to the bottom down here.
“All right. Tight.”
Tight? I can cut it down some. I already gave you some. Just need to put it in pretty tight.
“Yeah. It’s easier when it’s tight. I’m going to see if tt’ll cooperate. I just forgot my. Uh”
Persuasion tool.
“Yes, yes. How is that part? Oh, now I want to get a hammer with that engraved.”
You want to put a screw in that to hold it or do you want me to come over?
“Uh, I don’t know if we need a screw. It is the only tight where we need it at. The pursuader”
In the middle.
“Okay, In the middle. On top the line. A little low. And I left my way of holding things over here. Believe this uses so that matches. I’m going to run that back. We redo. Hold that just a little bit.”
Someday I’ll lose my mind.
“I’ll play that one for like that.”
While I’m getting paid hopefully. If it did fall out, I could find it.
“What’s the mark for this one.”
The very top.
“Very top?”
Top down.
“There you go. It looks alright?”
“You’re going at an angle.”
“Yeah.”
Show different way. I’m running with the porch. Which, by the way, we got to raise this up and put a piece of concrete underneath it.
“Your bits in there.”
“Oh it’s a lot easier than just pointing. I’m like what the hell are you talking about?”
He’s not real good with that sign language. He knows number one and all that kind of thing.
“Yeah. I’m pretty good with that one. I’m sure getting tire of getting you over there. Pretty big gap. Supposed to be at the top?”
Yeah, did I make a mistake on that too? Hold it. Ya, I made a mistake. Total length you got to raise that up.
“This one?”
No.
“Oh.”
I didn’t get this high enough. You got to raise it up. I meant for it to come up some. But I, I think we’re going to have to re-cut this one.
“Ah, OK.”
I don’t like how I’ve done it so let’s go over there to that one. This is 25 and half. It should have been 35 and a half.
“10 inch difference.”
28 and seven and an eighth. It should have been… That’s my fault, my mistake.
That’s a math problem.
“Dirty Rat bastard. Pass me that bucket of screws, please.”
You know what it was? I cut off the wrong piece. This is exactly the size thing though. I am never going to say I’m perfect.
“Well, at least you got the extra piece, though.”
Yeah.
“Thank you sir. Loosen up. Son of a, that doesn’t happen very often, and since I drop it.”
It’s really not very good.
“No, it has no magnetic.”
And it doesn’t have.
“So, are you cutting the 2×6 over?”
Yeah. Uh, hmm. I could cut those right now if I want. Go ahead and fasten that.
“There it is. Well, that was a quick battery.”
It’s cold. Lithium ion is just not as good as the other ones.
Is running downhill but the porch is running downhill, but we’re going to raise it up a little bit. May end up having to… We’ll see.
“Notch it.”
Notch it. So I can I could 45, that would be kind of silly. Yeah. Go ahead and fasten that. Center it up on that 2×4.
“Ya.”
Eighty eighty five. Eight.
“Seven.”
Ya, that’s where I was at. Got to go down. Looks like we need to go to take a lunch.
“Yeah I’m hungry. On the video I think I’ve said I’m hungry three times.”
I mean they’ll get the hint. I might not.
“I’m on uh locked in the where it’s going to be. Oh yes.”
We need to pull all the scews out of this, and fix my screw up. Is there one on the other side?
“Yep, one on this side. Two on this side. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t going anywhere.”
You did a good job and now it’s going. Now, it’s going to go somewhere. It’s all pretty but it don’t fit this…
“Rail system. Yeah, that one little area filled that whole pile of screws up. Bad time to miss your finger.”
When it’s gone I’ll miss it too.
“Where’s the level at? Or plumber, if you wish.”
It is a level. Actually, a lot of times old timers call it a whiskey stick.
“A whiskey?”
Is because, a lot af times it has alcohol and keep it from freezing.
“Oh really. I don’t know that.”
“Grab the whiskey stick.”
All right. That’s what a lot of the old timers I worked with called it. What they had on their mind. It wasn’t eating. If he if he ends up hurting hisself, we’ll go to the hospital with the camera on.
“I think I’m going to have to be working at to hurt myself bad enough to go to the hospital with a screw gun.”
You have the scab stuck in your eye.
“Yes. My arm slipped and. So I go over on this side, one in the other side. Oh, and two down below. Hopefully the gap didn’t change. I dropped some.”
If you need me to cut it down I will I go from the sides those sorts ones don’t give you much room. I can cut that off, check the other one see if it fits. Could be a 1/16 of an inch difference. Nope, Ok. I can cut that. I can cut it shorter, but I can’t make it longer.
“This one works for the top one.”
OK.
“That’s stripped. Go through here and get this. And are we putting all the styles back up?”
Yeah we’re going to cut them in two, that’s one of… We’re not going to a… We’re going to go to lunch first.
“Okay.”
Since you mentioned hungry three times.
“I mean I can start making blues music.”
Show me. Starting to sound like that guy on Sesame Street. Conjunction junction. There’s a lot of guys in construction that know Sesame Street because they get up because the kids have to get up and they just get high and drunk watching Sesame Street, and they know Sesame Street, Big Bird is a hero.
“Oh, really?”
In Orlando, they had a encephalitis.
“Huh?”
And I started calling it Snuffleupagus, and it stuck. Ya, I got to go get a Snuffeupagus shot. Don’t want to get Snuffleagus It’s a big purple beast or whatever it was. They’re spraying for Snuffleupagus.
“So, how come we didn’t notch those ones to go around the 4×4?”
I don’t think it would help a whole lot. I mean we could.
“I mean I don’t really know what that’s about. It is just curiosity that occurred to me.”
We could have.
“Does not take it off and skip lunch for long periods.”
Go buy two more bords, because those are… I can’t make longer. I can put a little piece of all sides of it.
“Wouldn’t looking any different.”
No, not from a distance, anyway. 5 and 3/4s
“Oh, balls. That’s bad. Yeah. And then. Ahh, man hell of a knot hole on this side. It’s like wait a min I don’t have any screws. Clay’s working on his fur suit today?”
If they’re even started.
“Oh, that’s right they don’t even start until like noon.”
Maybe.
“Oh my fingers get really scared.”
I’ll have to measure it.
“I’m completely good with that. Should be 2” and about 3 on the 4×4.
“Both you’re gonna sort of like.”
Look at here it sets right.
“Down.”
Where you support yourself, where you’d sit. Or.
“Damn near broke the screw tip. Oh for your coffee cup. Ya, that looks a lot better I like a lot more than what we came up here but.”
42 inches. Is going from the ground to whatever would be right there. It’d be right in your way you. Y’all stay where I can… All right let’s go to lunch.
Okay the width of these is around 21 inches. As far as up and down and so I do get it centered on six inch centers. So, I find the center first. Eighty-eight and a half to 44 quarter. Then the width of these is inch and half, so it’s 3/4 to one side of the other. I’m going to the left side. 3/4 there turn that into an x and then level, almost when… Transfer it to the bottom. X is transfer here, you do that on each one and then you just measure over six inches. 6, 10, 18, 24, 36, 42. Turn around, and x’s on this side. Same at the bottom six.
All right. Now, I just in a very fortunate manor these are 41 and 3/4 so eight inch less than 21. 20 and three quarters. 20 and three quarters but I’m going to use all these used ones because we’re going to use some stuff called deck correct on this and what you can do is kind of run the screws at an angle. So straight through and it won’t stick out the other side. So I need one, two, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Nine, 15 of them there’s 2. You got another screw or two?
“Here.”
If it gets where it’s one split on, you can run your screw into reverse. Now I didn’t do what Tim does, which is cuss it in addition.
“Hey, it’s afraid of me.”
I split that one too. You got an extra one?
“I do.”
What are you bleeding about?
“Me? I slipped. I can’t really see on that side.”
The grain of the wood is making me.
“Split?”
Go at an angle six. Now I’m not going straight across I’m going down here up at an angle of up here, down at an angle so that it doesn’t split it when you get real close. So you want to stay away from the end. Now we’re going to raise up this end over here. We’re using an old fulcrum lever.
“You mean lever.”
Lever. Which right here would probably work. You got your block? I don’t guess we need to chisel some of that.
“There’s a nicer one around back if you want to chisel it off.”
“Where’s it at?”
“I’ll go grab it.”
You can put this quarter pad on top of that.
“By the way. It’s wet down here.”
Is it?
“It is.”
You know how down here works.
“You know it all runs downhill.”
Yeah. And plumbers know that everything goes downhill. All their work goes down hill. You need to put some more under there.
“Like a 1by? Or this stuff here rather.”
Try let’s see if we can get a two by. I don’t know.
“All right you might have to stand on it. Okay. I like the little one That’s a little wider.”
“What about the shim right here? Will that work?”
Probably not a two by.
“Can you do it?”
We have these pieces that we cut out. You can use those too.
“Yeah, pretty close to a one by.”
You know, I could put a whole lot something more. But it’s not really that big deal.
“Oh, right still looks like it’s running a little downhill.”
Yeah, it does. That will go up.
“Yeah. So I’m thinking it’s like, saw that. But right now it’s kind of like.”
The more we can go. I can get it where you can put a two by. Yeah. Then see if the middle is off a bit.
“No, we’re still attached to the ground, but that’s not very good support either.”
This is getting kind of miserable.
“It’s making me have to pea everytime I turn around. I keep squating down. Bouncy?”
No, seems pretty even.
“Let’s leave it. It’s not horribly downhill.”