Wood Decking & Joist Hangers

[Andyb350z]

Hi all, after watching a number of decking builds on youtube (mainly american) I ahve decided to build my decking to the finished size of 10m x 8m, I am going to use a 25 posts in total concreted into the floor, 5 rows of five, of which i will attach lengths of 6x2 as my support beams, ontop of this i want to use 2x4" as my joists, I see a lot of people use metal joist hangers to attach the joists to the support beams. I was wondering what size joist i should be using as i have never used them, im assuming 150 x 50mm joists for the 2"x 4" joists ?

These seem really expensine looking at screwfix etc, can anyone reccomend a suitable joiust hanger and source that sells them ?

Also, would it make any sense to screw the end on the joists in to the outer frame and only use hangers where i cant get screws in the other eng of the joists ?

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

andy

 

[Phil Pascoe]

If you space your 6" x 2"s closer, and go for a decent thickness decking you can omit the 4" x 2"s - I did mine 13yrs ago, and it's never been a problem. It'll cost more in 6" x 2"s, but you'll save on everything else, inc. time. Mine was 8' above ground, so had to be sound. You'd need to rethink the ground plan, though, to get the decking running the right way.
Don't forget to fleet it so that it doesn't hold water.

 

[SteveF]

when I done my decking I put 4 x 4 in ground and left them too tall
strapped a 4 x 2 either side spaced every 1 metre

I then laid my decking accross them levelled up and cut the tops of the posts off
i also used a biscuit joiner and held them down with 2 x penny washers
no visible screws in the top and just screwed down thru washers in the the gap between boards
still solid now
my decking was hardwood and pre drilling would have took just as long
I just screwed the first and last row down
only trouble is if you need to lift one for whatever reason

Steve

 

[StevieB]

I would also recommend going just with 2x6 bearers and then joist between them with either hangers ideally or if you must a butt joint with BIG screws. The only advantage of 2x4 joists over 2x6 bearers is speed of construction (cutting joists to go between bearers is time consuming) and it also raises the deck by a further 4", which may or may not be useful. Go for 600mm centres max - 400mm is better. That is a big deck you are constructing - imagine you have 20-30 people round for a BBQ - suddenly 400mm spacing seems like a good idea