First deck advice needed: beam and post size


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Old 08-22-17, 07:31 PM
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First deck advice needed: beam and post size

I bought my first home a few months ago and decided it needed a shed. So I planned and built my own and I loved it. First real project like that at 22.

Now, since the front of our ranch house is very boring I want to build a front porch, starting with the deck portion first, and then moving on later to the roof portion. I just have a few questions regarding my plan.

It will be 6' by 20' long with each joist only spanning 6 feet. I am building it on concrete footings properly built and secured to the posts. My first question is, what size posts would be sufficient keeping in mind that I plan to add a simple sloping roof supported by 4 or 5 columns? The posts will only need to be 2'6" long and will be only on one side as I will be attaching the other side to a ledger board running along the house. My plan was to use either 4x6 or 6x6. Would a 4x6 work or is that not going to provide enough support? They will be spaced every 5 feet.

I am going to attach the joists on one side directly to the beam that sits flush on top of the posts and on the other side to the ledger. This is so that I can put the columns directly over the posts and thereby transfer all the weight of the roof directly through the beam to the posts below. Joists will be placed every 16 inches and will be 2x6s since they only have to span 6 feet. My plan is to make the beam out of 2 - 2x6 joined together. Is that sufficient or should it be made out of 3 of them, or perhaps using 2x8s? Any thoughts? Any glaring issues with the plan so far? Doing my best to learn as much as I can during the planning stage.

EDIT: doing a little bit more reading, it seems I do need 6x6 posts.
 

Last edited by leafan101; 08-22-17 at 07:56 PM.
  #2  
Old 08-23-17, 02:57 AM
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When you get into adding a roof to a deck you are getting into an area that is beyond simple deck construction. The type of roof, the loads from winter etc.

Might want to consider some professional help from an architect, something like that you want to do it right the first time.
 
 

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