Question on deck build sitting on ground

[2manyrocks]

Could you post pictures of what that area looks like now that you've removed the decks? Would like to see both the back of the house and the side where the chimney is located, please.

 

[Sigarms]

I'd just lose those stairs, they look too steep to keep and you don't seem to have another place for them. In addition they eat alot of deck space below.

You talk about a fire exit, good thinking but may I present another possibility of foster children sneaking out the deck entrance?

Sorry, those stairs were put on in 2007. Our last boy is shipping out in 2 weeks to Texas and we will be empty nesters. Fostering is no longer in the picture.

 

[Sigarms]

Could you post pictures of what that area looks like now that you've removed the decks? Would like to see both the back of the house and the side where the chimney is located, please.

Only one I have that I took coming back from mowing over the weekend.

Below however is what used to be there. The gameplan is for those stairs to come onto the concrete now. To extend it our further left would mean that one tree would go which my wife prefers to keep. We also have the added cost of lumber of trying to incorporate both upper levels off the stairs to the left.

 

[EddieWalker]

Lose the stairs to the top deck.

If you want a fire escape, I think that a shelving unit against the wall, that you could climb down, would work. Make it kind of like a ladder against the wall so it's solid, but make it nice so you can display some stuff on it.

 

[2manyrocks]

IDK, hard situation with all those doors and windows on three floors. FWIW, I think your deck to grade stairs need to stay in the same area as before in order to maximize your unobstructed second floor deck space.

As for the third floor deck, my thought is to either scale it back to a balcony or delete it entirely. If you go with a balcony, you'd likely end up with a support post that eats into your second floor deck space. Not sure what to do with the third floor door if you delete the deck/balcony. Wouldn't want someone to open the door and there be nothing there for them to step onto (no third floor deck and no balcony). If you replace the door with a window, then there goes your means of egress in the event of fire. Looks like the way your joists run there isn't any way of cantilevering the balcony without having to use any support posts?

 

[civilian]

If I am seeing your old stairs correctly, reorient them. In your picture facing the decks, from the third floor, have the stairs go towards the chimney to a landing connected to the second floor deck, then turn 180 degrees and come back away from the chimney to ground level. Basically use 2 sets of stairs from third floor to the ground with the second floor deck as the required landing. Jon

 

[2manyrocks]

If your code requires an external stairway to the third floor, it's cheaper to do it this time than to have to tear it out and redo it later.

 

[2manyrocks]

This morning's thought is to perhaps look at the stair designs on some of the beach front homes that have pretty crazy decks and stairs. You might see something you like.

Keeping all of the stairs to the chimney side will free up useable deck space and not block any of the views from the windows.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

Trex. Just something simple ,landing & steps.

 

[2manyrocks]

Fireman's pole, cargo net, inflatable bouncy thingy, zip line, knotted rope, paraglider, huge box stuffed with styrofoam peanuts

 

[Sigarms]

Fireman's pole, cargo net, inflatable bouncy thingy, zip line, knotted rope, paraglider, huge box stuffed with styrofoam peanuts

I've got to ask, why the smart arse comment?

 

[2manyrocks]

Because I'm out of good ideas that would actually be useful. It's the third floor that I can't figure out.

 

[2manyrocks]

FWIW, I think moving the 3rd floor stairs to the chimmey side preserves your wifes' window view, avoids the head bump, and saves deck space if the rise/run of the stairs can be made to work.

If you want to preserve fire egress via the third floor, I doubt you have much practical choice other than to run the 3rd floor deck out to where it will be supported by the brick columns or a beam spanning those two columns. If you don't really intend to use the 3rd floor as a deck, there really isn't much point in making it any larger than it has to be to span that distance. Visually, you would want it as symmetical as you can get it relative to the two windows and the door. In other words, don't chop it off in a way that makes it look lopsided.

Before building anything, I'd draw it out on the most recent photo you made showing the house with all of the decks removed.

 

[Sigarms]

FWIW, I think moving the 3rd floor stairs to the chimmey side preserves your wifes' window view, avoids the head bump, and saves deck space if the rise/run of the stairs can be made to work.

If you want to preserve fire egress via the third floor, I doubt you have much practical choice other than to run the 3rd floor deck out to where it will be supported by the brick columns or a beam spanning those two columns. If you don't really intend to use the 3rd floor as a deck, there really isn't much point in making it any larger than it has to be to span that distance. Visually, you would want it as symmetical as you can get it relative to the two windows and the door. In other words, don't chop it off in a way that makes it look lopsided.

Before building anything, I'd draw it out on the most recent photo you made showing the house with all of the decks removed.

View attachment 831475

Your line of thinking makes complete sense, and we looked at doing it that way with the contractor when he first came out to look at the job. The issue is per your rendering in the picture, the wood portion of the stairs under the "added" deck in purple you added would need to be extended further left (no way with the room and the first set of stairs to tie in additional steps from the 3rd floor with the space there to work with). See below, orange line below, this is how far the deck would need to be extended roughly.

Reasons agasint that option

1 - Wife wanted trees to remain to the left of the oranage line above that would have had to be removed to make room for the additional deck and cement.

2 - The deck would extend out past the house even further and the tree you see in the background has already been removed, and thought it would look more than odd from the front of the house just for stairs.

3 - A hefty price increase for additional lumber and cement for a set of stairs vs the fact that the existing stairs may have been used 2 times in 16 years.

Don't get me wrong, we thought when we first bought the place in 2005 it would be nice to have deck outside the bedroom to say have morning coffee. What we found is once you go downstairs to the kitchen to make your coffee, it's just as nice to go out and sit on the deck by a door 5' from you on the first level instead of hauling your coffee or tea back upstairs LOL

Reality is there really doesn't need to be a 3rd level deck, but as someone mentioned, it would just look odd to have a door there (I've mentioned it before, with all the windows and doors, the really does affect the heating and cooling load on the upper two levels). The only person who uses that 3rd deck is the cat, who will come down from the roof and jump on it to get the bedroom at night LOL

It was Juliet deck for at least 10 years when it was built. The contractor said he could make a pretty cool looking ladder that would give us the option of a 3rd floor "escape" in case of a fire, but I'm leaning towards Eddie's suggestion of just don't add anything. Contractor told me we could go over his idea when he starts with the wood next week.

This contractor doesn't have a company website but uses facebook, and his work looks first rate, and he seems to have a "designer" mind, and he's not afraid to offer options to spend our money LOL He's also the only contractor that told me he would not want to lay wood down so close to the ground for the bottom deck out from the basement and would only use cement for the base (he did sound like Eddie about just cutting the cement if there ever was an issue, and I guess it's just having the proper tools that you never think about because you never use them in your line of work).

All that said, I won't lie, I did think your "Fireman's pole, cargo net, inflatable bouncy thingy, zip line, knotted rope, paraglider, huge box stuffed with styrofoam peanuts" were pretty good options

I'm also VERY blessed to have this 1st world dilemma.

 

[2manyrocks]

A pergola frame/shade/roof structure could be added to give you both deck shade and a place to climb down to the second floor deck in the event of a fire. You'd need to incorporate a window that can be opened wide enough to escape from if you delete the door on the third floor along with the two larger existing windows that are the source of heat gain.

 

[ponytug]

I think two uses in sixteen years says it all...

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

To me that concrete job replacing wood deck is 100% improvement and goes well with the home. I'd probably think k.i.s.s. at this point, just simple stairs with two landings. Trex I recently put on our front porch (gray) & it's great. Maybe metal railing, aluminum, spiral. Lots of choices.

 

[EddieWalker]

When I was growing up, my parents added on to their house with three bedrooms upstairs for me and my two brothers. We each had a balcony off of our bedrooms that we never used. Other then something to see from the outside of the house, they where a waste of money.

My middle brother's balcony lined up with the backyard fence. The fence was a simple six foot tall wood privacy fence with tongue and groove boards and a 2x4 over the top of them. It didn't take us very long to figure out that we could climb over the balcony railing, step down to that fence, and then jump down to the ground. It was a little harder getting back up on top of the fence to sneak back in, but worth it so our parents never new we had snuck out.

There isn't any reason to spend the money to build stairs to that balcony. I'd slim it down to make it as small as possible, or even better, seal up the door and make a roof over the deck. If somebody needs to get out for a fire, they could climb out of the window, onto the roof over the deck, and get down from there.

The more I think about it, the better I like that idea of getting rid of the door and building a roof. I think that's what I would do if it was my house.

 

[bigtiller]

Fuddy hit on the fix....spiral staircase.

Years ago when steel was cheap, a friend built a one story spiral staircase to get from his bedroom balcony to the in-ground pool. I helped him set it in place. It was a heavy sucker but my jd 3020 with a loader and a good spud bar made it fairly easy.

He did a great gob of measuring and building it to fit perfectly and bolted it to over a cubic yard of buried concrete.

 

[ultrarunner]

A couple of thoughts...

Some of the new construction is using a mini deck or even wrought iron so they can still have a door to open with no one falling out...

Some of this is driven from a party we're 20+ school kids gathered on a deck near UC Berkeley and it collapsed so all the large decks are being downsized...

My cousin has a 3rd floor sun deck they using I guess for sunbathing?

The put in s spiral stair case from a kit...

Very functional, takes a very small footprint and nothing to rot...