All too often, deck designs begin with digging holes and filling them with concrete to make the deck footings. Unfortunately, deck designs that use this approach often result in deck footings that either sink under load or end up heaving in winter. In this section, there are deck footing tables and advice developed from numerous professional publications that will help you get your gazebo and deck designs right. Following this information on deck designs will ensure your deck footings sit flat and level for years to come.

More specifically, this section on deck designs will tell you how to determine the diameter and spacing between the deck footings based upon your particular soil type. Although not difficult, most deck designs fail to take into account how the spacing between deck footings influences the number and size of floor joists and beams. Given this interdependency between soil type, spacing between deck footings, and lumber sizes, you can begin to see why good deck designs start with determining the soils bearing capacity BEFORE even thinking about sizing joists and beams. Good deck designs literally start from the ground up - deck footings first.

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