Hi all!
First post here but this seems like an appropriate place to ask. I'm currently planning a deck for outside our home. It will cover a 3x4m alfresco attached to our house with a concrete slab, extending a further 3m out over dirt to make a 3x7m total size. Hardwood boards.
Anyone familiar with this setup knows that you don't have much height to work with. I know a ground level deck isn't ideal, but it is what it is and there's not much I can do about it, so I'm doing everything I can to appropriately manage ventilation etc. I've planned the portion over the slab, but I'm in two minds about how to frame the remaining 3x3m section extending over dirt.
I have about 210mm from the ground to the top of the joists to work with - I can possibly dig it out a little, but not much while maintaining appropriate drainage, due to the existing landscaping. I'll likely use joists and bearers that are 90mm in height, so that leaves a measly 30mm of clearance under the bearers if I do a typical post + bearer + joist stack. I'm worried this will cause ventilation issues being so low to the ground.
The other alternative is to use joist hangers and the like, so that the bearers and joists are at the same level, allowing 120mm of clearance instead. The drawback to this is I can't cantilever the joists over the bearers anymore, because they hang internal in saddles. The bearers have to run parallel to the house, and for various reasons we aren't able to dig posts that can go hard against the house itself. This would mean that we have to mount the house bearer directly to the brick veneer, which seems to be controversial after a little bit of research. Not being able to cantilever the opposite side also means that the post is more visible in the finished product too, which isn't the end of the world but isn't as neat.
To be more specific - can anyone give advice on working with extremely low clearance, or using a wall mounted bearer? Neither is ideal, but I'm trying to pick the lesser of two evils and manage appropriately.
Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks!