Building a deck without help

A lot depends on what you are building. There are two different types of decks:

• Traditional Deck

This involves (typically) some sort of footings to hold the posts, a ledger board on the side of the house and a lot of very specific rules designed to make sure the deck doesn't fall down and hurt people. The deck has to be extremely rigid - you can't have it move away from the house.

• Floating Deck

A floating deck (typically) has posts fit into specially designed blocks:

which simply sit on the ground. The entire deck may move a bit over time. As a result, there are limits (which may vary by jurisdiction) as to the maximum height and other constraints. But a big difference is that you do not attach the deck to your house. That actually removes a lot of the usual concerns about how everything is connected together. End result: a floating deck is much easier to build than a traditional deck.

In some cases, a floating deck may not even need a building permit, which is a big advantage. However, that is dependent on jurisdiction (in my area, OK up to 200 square feet).

Check with your local building department (county, city, etc.) and find out if a floating deck is permitted and, if so, what the constraints are. That may go a long way towards making this a one-man project. I built mine (< 200 square feet, very short posts) together with my evil twin. I could have done it myself, but an extra set of hands is really useful when you are placing 10' or longer boards.

When I was much younger around 1980, I built an "L" shaped deck that was 12'X28' and 10'X 24' or about 720 sq ft by myself. What A hard job it was. When I was done I looked at that deck with pride in the fact that I did the build myself. My best recommendation is to plan very carefully and I mean everything and have a plan "B" just in case. For the vertical posts I found a rental place that had a 1 man post hole digger that could drill 12" holes 48" deep. It was mounted on a "tow behind" wheeled platform. Other than that device everything else was done by hand. I built the main beams in place using 2X10's and 1/2" plywood. (Joist, plywood, joist, plywood, joist, all glued together and bolted together). My advice as I said before PLAN, PLAN, PLAN.

This is more of a philosophical answer rather than specific.

First and foremost keep in mind that badly built decks are dangerous, and the danger is in proportion to the height. Seriously, there are a lot of actual injuries caused, so if you're going to do it do it right.

It's possible for one person to do some pretty big projects. Building a deck alone is no big deal.

It's easy to get a good set of plans drawn up for a deck that will make the deck safe and sound. But the drawings detail what to do, not how to do it.

You can find some good resources (and plenty of bad resources) on how to do it, watching youtube videos, books at Home Depot, etc. Building a deck is harder than something like say fixing a toilet because there's a lot more steps involved. It's not simple assembly / disassembly of parts, you have to make the parts.

Most of the how-to resources you'll find are going to assume you have more than one person working. It will take some ingenuity to come up with a way to do things with one set of hands.

Safety is important not just so that the deck is sound but so that you don't hurt yourself in the process of building. For safety, it's very important to temper ingenuity with good judgement. Good judgement is developed by experience. So, it's probably not wise to attempt your first deck alone. Maybe not even your second deck.

I guess my answer boils down to, if you're asking how hard it is, it's going to be too hard.

Here's a deck with roof that I did maybe 75% by myself. It's 24 ft x 16 ft. I did have help (provided by my dad and a friend) with the roof ridge beam, rafters, and roof sheathing. This is before it was screened in, and was done approximately 25 years ago.

Neighborhood was still being built, so with all the county inspectors poking around, I had it permitted and inspected.