decking construction websites??

I downloaded a quite useful information sheet from the Wickes site when I did mine. It was just about all that I needed to complete the job. Two years on it's as good as when built.

That looks good - wish I'd found it!!

I used

I think all guides are more or less consistent with the posts, frames, joist and boards. The really tricky bit for me was doing the handrails. That Wickes guide gives one way of doing it, I used another.

I personally felt the key for the handrails is to have all screws / nails as discrete (or invisible) as possible, so instead of the angled screws suggested by the Wickes guide I bought a cheap pocket hole jig (at TMWH's advice) from Axminster and found that gave a very neat solution to screwing the handrails to the posts. I also went for dowels / glue / holes for attaching the spindles to the handrail (for the baserail I screwed from underneath, thus building the handrail separately before attaching to the newel posts.

In terms of the newel posts, you have to decide whether they are going to be on the outside of your frame, or inside it. I chose inside the right angles of the frame, and therefore had to notch some boards to accommodate them, though this was trivial in the end. I couldn't quite see how attaching newels to the outside allowed the handrail to flow properly around the corners.

I'm no expert - I've built two, and I'd only show one to anybody interested, and even then there are mistakes which annoy me. But overall I'm happy with mine (and so is SWMBO!!)

Matt

extended my wife's decking used a handrail as the base for the balusters but inverted it so that it created a channel to catch water (and eventually rot the base of the balusters). They insisted to her that that was how it was supposed to be. Maris

built.http://www.wickes.co.uk/Good-Idea-Leaflets/Good-Idea-Leaflets/pcat/15...>>>> --

Ha ha just looked at this. They are also advocating the upturned handrail. OK I'll concede that they advise the cutting of fillets to fill in the gaps. Maybe that is where the Poles saw it. Not a very sensible detail all in all, though. Maris

Others have mentioned Wickes, B&Q do a leaflet, some info here

If you want to send me the size (metric) & the board direction I'll send you a list of board & joist runs, screws required etc.

Yes, I did the same for the baluster base. Fact is that there was no other material available that would match the rest of the wood. You could use ordinary timber or some form of moulding, but even after treatment the original colour difference compared to the treated wood of the balusters, hand rails and decking would still show through. Having said all that though, it has been in place for around four years and there is no sign of any problem thus far.