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Hello @ponga3
Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community.Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your question about building a low-level deck near your pool.
To give our members a better idea of the location of your proposed deck. Would it be possible for you to post a photo of the area and where you plan on building the decking frame? We can then offer you possible solutions and material suggestions for your deck.
We look forward to seeing the photos.
Eric
i think the photos have been uploaded. the deck is going between the house and the pool as shown
Hello @ponga3
Thank you for posting the photos of the area. A good place to start would be to have a look at this guide: How to build a low-level deck by @Adam_W. I'm afraid building the deck at the 90mm height you require is not going to be viable. If you only have 90mm and take away, for example, 70mm for the smallest timber frame, less the thickness of the Merbau decking panel leaves you a 1mm gap between your brick floor and the decking frame. It becomes even more concerning because it is next to the swimming pool and if that water gets stuck under the frame of your deck it will greatly shorten the life of your deck.
A possible solution is to remove the bricks that are currently there. If for example the bricks are removed, you would possibly gain approximately an extra 60mm of space, add your 90mm and you have 150mm of workable space. You can now use a 90 x 90 H4 treated pine post near the pool. It's a bit overkill, but the post is treated for severe wetting. You can then use Ekodeck so that it will be impervious to your swimming pool water. Using this set up you would have 37mm left as an air gap under the deck.
Let me tag our experienced members @MGusto, @jaga, and @Adam_W for their recommendations.
If you need more advice or information, please let us know.
Eric
Hi @ponga3,
Using 90 x 45mm outdoor framing timber to construct a low-level deck is something commonly seen in the many projects our members have contributed. I'm currently using it myself on a low-level deck. As long as you space the supports appropriately and have enough of them over your deck, you shouldn't have any issues.
There's not really any thicker bearers you could use in that space, as the next readily available size up would be 140 x 45mm.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Mitchell
My preference would be no more than every 800mm @ponga3. However, if you wanted to push that out further, you could read through some of our members' posts and follow suit or cross-reference online timber span tales.
Mitchell
Were you still using angle brackets @ponga3? If you were going to remove the bricks, then you'd be concreting post supports into the ground. Or was it concrete under the bricks? Post supports are made from some reasonably solid material and would likely outlast the deck's timber even close to a pool.
We've got a limited selection of stainless steel brackets. You could use this Carinya 100 x 125 x 30 x 5mm Stainless Steel Angle Bracket. Alternatively, I think you'll be pretty safe using galvanised Dynabolts and angle brackets.
Mitchell
