Plain-English guides for the deck you want to build: the drawings a reviewer asks for, what free designers leave out, the free AWC code guide table by table, and a pergola on top. Every number carries its source.
Start here · 11 min read
Your building department told you to bring drawings. Open real sample sheets, see what our drawings contain and what they leave to you, and check the eight sheets a reviewer looks for before you apply.
Read the guideFor a single-level wood deck built to the AWC DCA6 guide. Guide rule: from the AWC DCA6 deck guide or the residential code. Depends: your building department, your soil or your frost line change it. Your building department decides what applies where you live.
Start with the drawings, then check what a free designer gives you, then read the code guide behind both.
Step 1
The sheets a deck permit set needs, and what free designers leave off them.
Step 2
The AWC DCA6 guide in plain English, with a worked row for each table.
Step 3
Where the posts can land, how the pergola ties to the house, how footings are sized and what the permit office asks.
Step 4
How a solid roof ties into the house wall, what snow and wind add, how the posts and footings are sized and what the frame costs.
Step 5
What a deck and a pergola cost in lumber, hardware and concrete, with the installed ranges from the cost sites named and dated.
Each links straight to its answer, with the sources beside it.
The AWC DCA6 deck guide, the residential code and county pages come first. Every figure carries a source tag you can open.
Where the designer makes a choice the code does not, the guide says it is our choice, not a requirement.
Other tools are described as we found them in November 2026, with their strengths named. We do not copy their screens.
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