A couple of years ago I built a deck onto my house. It is 32′ x 14′
I used a cantilever design at 12′ with 2×8″ floor joists, with 2×6″ decking boards. The Cantilever beam was set on 6×6″ posts that are on top of 30″ deep footers.
I doubled up a 2×12″ for the cantilever beam by notching the 6×6″ on either side, and putting the 2×12 in each notch. These posts are spaced every 8 feet.
The question I have now is how to go about building a pergola on top of part of the existing deck – thinking something like 12×12′, 8′ high. The existing deck is only maybe 3 feet off the ground at the highest point. Can I build a freestanding pergola on top of the existing deck, or attached to the floor joists or something like that? I dont want to attach it to the house, and I dont really want to have to dig footers for it. The reason for this is because I had to rent a bobcat to dig the first footers because the ground is like solid shale about 3″ under the top soil, and would be pretty hard to dig now that the deck is already there.
Source: diy.stackexchange.com
Photo by James Cheung on Unsplash
