Deck Installation in Happy Valley, OR
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Ten feet is the number on Happy Valley's deck checklist that matters most on a hillside. Past 30 inches above grade, a deck needs a building permit, which is the state's rule and true everywhere in Oregon. At 10 feet or more above grade, Happy Valley's building division requires engineering: structural and lateral calculations for the posts, beams, bracing and footings, submitted with the permit. The same requirement attaches to any deck that carries a hot tub, at any height. The Building Official can waive it in unusual cases and does not do so as a matter of course.
On a flat lot, 10 feet is an upper-floor deck and nothing else. On a lot cut into one of Happy Valley's slopes, the yard falls away from the back door, and a deck that is 3 feet off the ground at the house can be 11 feet at its far corner. That is the deck this page is about, and this is how VResh Construction gets from the first visit to the drawing on one.
The visit
It starts with a tape and a level line from the threshold. VResh measures how far the ground has dropped at 6 feet out from the house, at 10 feet, and at 14 feet, and marks on the ground where a deck surface at the door's height would stand 10 feet above the slope. That mark is the far edge the homeowner can have without an engineer, and on many hillside lots it comes sooner than expected. It is also the moment to ask the question that changes everything else: will a hot tub ever go on this deck? If the answer is possibly, the engineer is in the picture from the start, whatever the height, and the framing under one bay is designed for the load with the review; how far the calculations extend for the rest of the deck is the engineer's and the city's call.
The drawing
With the mark on the ground and the tub question answered, the deck is drawn one of two ways.
Under the line, the deck is built from the prescriptive tables the city accepts, the code's own tables for joist spans, beam sizes, post heights, and footings. Getting under the line on a slope usually means pulling the far edge in, or turning the deck to run along the house rather than out from it, or stepping it, with an upper platform near the house and a lower one farther down where the ground has come back up to meet it. How the city measures a stepped deck against the 10-foot line, each level on its own or the highest surface to the lowest grade, is a question VResh puts to the building division before it draws one that way.
Over the line, the deck is engineered. VResh measures the slope, the spans, and the loads, and presents them to an engineer, who sizes the structure for the height, including the diagonal bracing a tall deck needs between its posts, and signs the drawings. VResh does not do that arithmetic itself. The engineer's review goes on the estimate as its own item, and the city reviews the drawings with the permit. Many hillside houses have exactly this deck, built from an engineer's drawings.
The ground
Two more of the city's rules affect a hillside deck, and both concern the dirt rather than the deck. An erosion-control permit is required where more than 500 square feet of ground is disturbed. Footing holes alone rarely reach that; access paths, spoil spread on the slope, and any bench cut into the bank are what push a hillside job over it, and VResh counts the disturbed area on the estimate drawing and pulls the second permit where the count says so. Happy Valley's steep-slope overlay applies to lots with slopes steeper than 15 percent when a permit is pulled, with exceptions for small structures that involve no grading and for shallow footing excavation; planning staff decides whether a given deck falls under an exception, and VResh asks whether a design involves cutting or filling the slope.
The footings themselves are covered on the main deck page. A retaining wall at the edge of the pad, where there is one, is its own structure under its own rules, looked at separately from the deck.
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VResh Construction provides window replacement, siding installation, roofing, dry rot repair and full exterior renovation services throughout the Portland metro area and Southwest Washington.
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Deck questions from Happy Valley, OR
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We have a wealth of experience working as main building contractors on all kinds of projects, big and small, from home maintenance and improvements to extensions, refurbishments and new builds.
Bring one answer to the visit
Whether a hot tub might ever sit on the deck is the one thing VResh cannot measure with a tape, and it changes the engineering, the permit, and the framing. Have that answer ready; the rest is measured on the day. Call or text (503) 272-6436.