How To Figure Out How Many Deck Boards You Need || Dr Decks

In this quick tip video, we'll show you how to calculate how many deck boards you'll need for any given project.
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[FreshwaterFloof]

Man im building my first deck and this dudes videos are by far the best.

[MrPaulmegan]

You should also consider the thickness of the facia as well as the perimeter overhang.

[davidalford]

Appreciate the insite brother. Ive been doing it the long way. I never considered accounting for my gap in my initial math.

[nicci]

TY! for the help! All of the online calculators are behind a wall unless you give them personal info... hate that!

[matulala]

So, you don’t subtract 1 gap dimension from the total? Because you’ll have a gap in between every board except the last one. Also, do you reduce the dimension of the deck to match your deck boards + gap dimensions? Or do you just plan to rip the last board to fit?

[erichula]

Thank you for this. I am working on a 12’ X 40’ with a roof. I need all the help I can get. I am in Covington Washington.

[ih]

Would explain that the .3186 translates to around 1.8 inches. This will be about a 3.5 inch overhang or rip that would need to be made. SO can look at changing the gap a touch to reduce that.

[shawnmurphy]

Would you ever reduce the length of the deck so you have no partial boards?

[Scott-dnbk]

To all new deck builders out there, probably the most complicated thing you need to worry about is the gap. Yes, everything else is important however I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that if you were to put a 3/16" gap between deck boards as suggested in this video, and the decking you purchased was your typical yellow pine from lowes or home depot, within a year you will be kicking yourself and wanting to rip up the entire deck to start over.

WHY?

Because yellow/white pine from HD/Lowes contains a TON of moisture. The recent board I picked up was at 40% moisture content. And that was a fairly dry board at the top of the rack. They get even much more saturated. I always leave my boards out to dry but 95% of deck builders do not do this. A 16' deck board should be light enough for a kid to carry. The average adult would struggle a bit to get that onto the cart at home depot/lowes right off the shelf because it weighs MUCH more due to moisture.

Wood expands and contracts. So it's good to typically leave expansion room, but if your wood is saturated wet, it really has NOWHERE to go but to a level of much lower moisture content. Depending on where you live, this can vary but lets say you leave a 3/16" gap between boards that were saturated at 50% MC during installation. Within a few months even, that wood will shrink by another 1/4", at least as it normalizes it's MC to reach environmental equilibrium. That's EACH board. So if you have a 3/16" gap to begin with on two boards, each board shrinks another 1/4", that's 1/8" presumably by each board within that single gap. So that IS 1/4" additional gap.

Now you have roughly a 1/2" gap, for every deck board. Now imagine it shrinks even more or you accidently leave a larger gap during initial install. Now you have gaps the size of someone's big toe.

Either let your boards dry out first or butt them against each other when installing. Also consider the edge to edge gaps, seams, miters etc that will all shrink. Those corner butt joints will be nice and tight for about a week.

Decks are a pain in the butt so plan well and this way you wont be disappointed.

[martinmcfly]

I am framing a deck attached to my house, which is 42' 5.5" wide. 28' 5.5" of that is just under 20 feet deep. The rest of the 14 feet wide part is 12 feet deep and under an overhang. I am having trouble figuring out if i should use 20 foot composite deck boards with a picture frame in 2 sections. Or picture frame out 3 sections. If I do the 20 foot boards i have 2.5 feet of picture frame to build out. If I do 3 sections i have more scrap. Trying to minimize scrap. I could use use 12 foot and 16 foot boards at the 28 foot wide part but then i have 3 uneven sections of deck. Idk. What would you do? I subscribe and like all the videos i watch from your channel.

[MrJreed]

Question: if you’re using pressure treated wood, you don’t have to factor in the gap, since they are wet and you wouldn’t use a gap on wet wood, correct?

[CHANNELCHECKER]

That is as long as one board runs the entire length. If it doesn't then you need to know how many boards will cover your full 20' length. If you have 8ft, 12ft, 16ft boards them that changes everything.

[corettagallagher]

Hay @steve Martin I agree bc I am trying to do a 5x20 deck

[eliasdelacruz]

Hello Dr deck I'm one of the 17 percenters I have been trying to get the erwing clamp deck adapters with no luck do you have a web page that I can purchase them from..thanks

[grogers]

what kind of deck joist do you use. They all have many uniform tick marks in them

[pauliephilippa]

Ah for some it is, by the way if you guys used metric it would be even simpler a deck board is 137mm plus the gap of 6mm equals 143mm see no fractions
Any way love your work thank you for the tips and yes I am one of the 17%..

[derekcarter]

Ok so what if you don't have decking boards long enough to run the total span of the deck

[stevemartin]

I’m not a carpenter just a slappy but why run the boards long way instead of sideways? Easier to get 14’ or even add a 2x4 and get 12’ers. Just trying to understand!

[mikehall]

If only lumber yards knew how to do that.

[glennroselli]

How long are the boards ? 8 ft 12 ft 16 ft ?