My wife and I decided to build a deck onto our house.  We had initailly planned on a contrator doing the wrok, but when my father in-law told ne how much money we could save, we decied to do it ourselves.

The contrator quoted us a price of $7100.00 for a 22' x 16' deck.  We can get the materials for a 22' x 23' deck for about $2200.00.  That's quite a bit of savings.

Yesterday was Day 1 of construction.  I got to dig the footer holes.  Because we are attaching the deck to the house, local building code states the holes need to be 30" deep, and since we are using 6" x 6" posts, they need to be 12" in diameter.

Thankfully, I found a neat tool (see picture below) for the job, a one-man hydraulic auger.  This thing was quite the beast (I had to tow it behind my truck).  It was more difficult than I had hoped, but that was mostly because of rocks and one stubborn tree root that went right through the middle of one hole, and was 25" down, so getting good leverage was difficult.  Thanx to my trusty reciprocating saw, and my wife's tenacity with a clam-shell post hole digger, we were able to defeat the root.

The next step is to get the holes inspected, which is scheduled for tomorrow, and then fill the holes with concrete, which I plan to tackle over the weekend.

The rest of the construction will take place Memorial Day Weekend.  My fater and uncle are coming down from New Jersey and my father -inlaw is coming up from Maryland.  Also, some friends form work, and ColdFusion developers extrordinaire, Joe Rinehart, Doug Hughes and Robert Apanna will be asisting in the construction.  Hopefully with all these people, we will be able to finish the deck over the long weekend.