Hey everyone, awesome forum. Not sure how I haven't found it before.... Long story short, I did some drawings about 3 years ago on a deck that I wanted to build on the back of my house over an existing patio. I did the drawings in AutoCAD, took them to the city, got the approval and then only managed to hang a ledger board on the house and break away some of the patio to start digging footings. Haven't made any progress since. I have all the composite decking and railing covers in my garage and just really need to get this built to free up the space and gain some nicer usable space outside. Here are the original designs that were approved by the city and some existing photos of the property. The plan was adding the ledger board, then running beams out from the ledger. Then adding joists on top of the beams. This would allow me to use the 12' decking planks perpendicular to the house. After looking back at this design it doesn't make much sense to double stack the beams and the joists though? I much rather use the joists in between the beams if I can? This is where I'm looking for help. I'm trying to go back through and redesign this to make more sense. :wall: So here's where I'm at. This uses 2x10s doubled up for beams every 6' on center. Probably overkill? I'm thinking I might be able to go to 96 on center? I'm sure that would depend on the joist size. If I use 2x8 joists I should be able to go to 8' spans right? It will get some pretty good use out of it, cookouts and what not, Could be 6-10 people on it? I originally planned on using 4x4s in the ground that would run all the way up so I can use them for posts on the railing. I was also planning on using 4x4s under the middle of the beams anchored to the existing cement patio. If I change to doubled 2x10 can I still use the 4x4s under them? There's only 6.75" between the bottom of the 2x10s and the cement patio. This will also throw off the way I planned on doing the railing posts. Looking forward to reading some feedback. Sorry for the all the questions in one post. Nick

Hi Folks, After getting sidetracked from my deck rebuild ([URL]http://www.doityourself.com/forum/decks-patios-porches-docks/496476-replacing-old-deck.html[/URL]) project, I'm back on track. Deck was torn down (joists weren't even toenailed into the beam - LOL) and footings are in. So now we're looking at raising the posts and installing the beam and I wouldn't mind feedback on how I think I should build the beam. [IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v328/Couch_Surfer/beam_zpse3677687.png[/IMG][/URL] The beam (and deck) will be 23 foot wide, and I have posts at the red markers at 1', 8', 15', 22' points (per the image). I want to build the beam using 3 2X10s, and the rectangles in the image is the top down view of how I think I should put it together. Thoughts? Thanks.