Overheard a guy at the lumber yard say he never checks for square on a deck frame

He was telling his buddy that 'if the posts are plumb, the rest sorts itself out,' which is just wild to me. I've seen too many wavy decks from that kind of thinking, especially on a job I did in Kelowna last summer where we had to fix a whole section. Do you actually trust your posts that much, or do you still check every corner?

2 comments

2 Comments

benwilliams23h agoMost Upvoted

Oh man, that's a scary way to build... trusting posts alone is just asking for trouble. Had a client last year who had a deck built with that same idea, and the whole thing was a parallelogram. We had to pull up every board because nothing lined up for the new railing. Even with plumb posts, the frame can shift when you're bolting it all together. I check for square at every single corner, no matter what. It takes two minutes with a tape measure and saves hours of headache later.

julia_carter22h ago

That logic works fine until you hit ground that isn't perfect. Posts can be plumb all day long, but if your rim joist isn't square to the house, what then? You're just building a crooked frame perfectly plumb. A quick 3-4-5 check takes what, a minute? Seems like skipping it is more about pride than speed.