Re: Deck is finished and the pool has been great for 2 years
I recently built a deck using the plans at Deckplans.com. It is a different style of construction than shown in the photos in this thread. It is a floating pier system. For a 21 round pool, you make 18 sections of deck support frames and support them with 4x4s
As for the height of the supporting joists, their Splash Deck plans show you how to determine this height. In short, I took the height of the top rail and subtracted the depth of the widest (deepest?) area of the top rail (my rails are thicker in the center, outside the pool) the thickness of the decking board (1 in for composite decking) and the thickness of the joist (5 1/2 inches in my case). I think I ended up using 10 inches total. This 10 inches allowed me to level the pier footing, place the 4x4 in the block, find the line on the 4x4 where it is level with the top of the pool's rail and subtract 10 inches. This is different than the methods used in the deck shown in this thread.