Plan a deck
Every trade, one set of measurements
Deck planner
Two figures make a deck: how long it is and how far out it goes. From those come the boards for the pattern you are laying, the screws that fix them, the footings under it, the flashing where it meets the house and the stain over it — and the railing worked out two ways, in balusters and in cable, so the choice is a comparison rather than a guess.
- 1 Measure the deck
- 2 Choose its finishes
- 3 Save it to My Project
Give the deck a length and a width, and it is drawn here with every figure beside it.
The deck
Nothing here is required. Each figure appears as soon as it has what it needs.
Length and width, and nothing else yet. The board thickness is recorded as an assumption rather than asked for, because nothing on the list reads it — a box for a figure nothing uses is a question that cannot be answered wrongly or rightly.
Add a deck
Two figures make one. The board thickness is recorded as an assumption rather than asked for, because nothing on the list reads it — and a box for a figure nothing uses is a question that cannot be answered wrongly or rightly.
Everything the deck needs
In the order the work is done. No row has a figure yet.
Nothing in this deck is everything the deck needs yet. Choose how a surface is finished, or what else is being done, and its rows appear here.
Assumptions assumed
Everything the figures above rest on that you did not give, and what they are still waiting for.
Nothing is assumed yet: give the deck its measurements to begin.
How the planner runs
- Give the deck its length and the distance it stands out from the house.
- Choose the board pattern — laid straight, or on the diagonal, which costs length in cuts.
- Say whether it is attached to the house, which is what brings the ledger and its flashing into the list.
- Compare the two railings on this deck's own perimeter, and take the one you are building.
- Save it into your project, where the boards and the fixings can be priced against a supplier's list.
Where the figures come from
- Deck Footing Calculator
- Deck Ledger Flashing Length Calculator
- Deck Board Calculator
- Deck Screws Calculator
- Deck Stain Calculator
- Deck Baluster Calculator
- Cable Railing Calculator
Reading for the decisions
Questions
- Why is there no joist figure?
- A joist span and a footing depth are decided by the load on the deck and by the ground it stands on, and neither is read off a rectangle. This page counts what the outline genuinely decides and says so where it stops; the span itself is a structural decision, and the site's span checker takes one you have already chosen.
- Why does laying the boards diagonally change the quantity?
- A diagonal board crosses the deck at an angle, so it is longer than the width and each end is cut at that angle. Both the extra length and the waste off the cuts are in the figure, which is why a 45° deck is not the same order as a straight one of the same area.
- Does the stain figure cover both sides?
- It covers the walking surface and the exposed faces the deck calculator counts. Boards sealed on all four faces before they go down take more, and that is worth doing on a deck that cannot be lifted afterwards — order for it deliberately rather than expecting this figure to have assumed it.
- Can a deck sit in the same plan as a room?
- Yes. Every planner in this family works on one project plan, so a deck added here is on the room planner too, and both save into the same estimate.
When the work is a job rather than a room. Plenty of it never starts from a space — a slab, a roof, a deck, a panel upgrade. Each of those is a job takeoff: give it the few figures that job is described by, and every trade in it comes back together, the way the room does here.