marmkid,

I'm a notary public and I doe have a wealth of experience of sealing documents. I think I'm the only other profession which is willing to give free advice besides Architects. Sorry I can't help you with your deck but if you need to have anything witnessed, I'm the Guy and I do it for Free. I look at it as a contribution to society.

let see...
you'll demo the existing roof and replace it with something which can take a greater live load and possibly the structure reinforced at the foundation.
new opening w/ door on the second floor.
railings.
guardrail.
water proofing (tricky dick here)

my guess is, if you do it yourself 12 k
if the builder does it 17 k

this is without the permits and design fees and engineering.

need pics....

if your backyard were not square, I could help

first call the city and see what the required loading is. different cities have different rulez. i have all kinds of great deck details but they are for expensive cribs which this don't sound like it wants to be.

Gawd, you guys are such by-the-book architects!!

marmkid the last thing you want to do is venture into the Philly building permits department. For one thing, any and all roof decks in Philly require a zoning variance hearing. And doing it right is going to cost at least what Orhan suggested, which will come after the three month delay to get your variance and month more to get the actual permit, which means summer will be over and you won't be able to enjoy the deck anyway.

So just do what all your neighbors do: pile up a couple bricks or a CMU block at the four corner locations directly on the roof material and build up from there with regular old PT lumber from the Home Depot down on Columbus Blvd. A few PT pre-cut pickets and top rail and you're done. Just be sure not to drive home with ALL the lumber you need at once because the building dept guys hang out in the parking lot there and follow you home to see if you have a permit, which you won't.

Of course this is all illegal, so I'm kidding. The truth is, the permit department WILL require a variance, but they do have a very simple application process specifically for decks. And they WILL want to see details of the actual connection to the roof showing lumber and connection sizes. So if you want to do it you need to do it seriously. The good news is there are literally tons of examples of how to deal with the problem on all the roofscapes in the city - spend some time looking at how it is typically done by builders, and then tweak the standards to make it your own design. And do wander around Home Depot looking at what is cheap that you can manipulate to your own ends. You can do a simple and cool cable guardrail rail with turnbuckles out of parts you buy from the hardware store. And corrugated plastic is always vernacular and hip.

Also, for some more expensive design ideas, wander up the alleys in the 1900-2200 blocks of Delancey Street - some very nice designs back there.

Oh, and I can give you the name of a builder if you don't want to do it yourself - he's building one of my designs as we speak!

thanks liberty bell

his name would be great, if nothing else than for an estimate to see how much it would all be
you can email it to me if you would rather not post it here

thanks everyone
i was mainly curious if anyone else has done anything like this on their own homes, and their experiences with that

designing and building for work is one thing, doing it for your own home is a whole other thing, as i am finding out with this simple deck

fun though

unfortunately budget constraints will limit a lot of what i do, but im searching as much as i can to make it cool

I'm looking for it marmkid and will email it to you - project just started last week, I haven't spoken to the builder in a year (variance process delay, ha! ugh.) so can't remember his last name, and the client hasn't returned my call yet. But I'll get it to you.

lb....damn your giving away the architects secrets....sigh~

lb, the building dept guys hanging out in home depot parking lot to follow and bust no permit lumber purchase activity is really pro active.
what if highway patrol also get into the action?

officer-"whatcha gonna do with all that lumber big boy?"
big boy with the lumber-"deck"
officer-"it'll cost you more than you think, get an aia architect"

I was thinking along the lines of Inland Wetland Enforcement Officers.
They are the people who carry squirt guns and shoot water at presentation boards just to see them run. Ya better check to see if first your in an Inland Wetland Regulated Area. The Best way to check is to start building something and well they will show up at your door with one of those fancy pancy named orders telling you to stop immediately or they will take your first son.

You must also be careful to be sure if you meet all the ADA OBJECTIVES. If you have check writting desks they must ALL
meet the ADA OJECTIVES. If they don't they will make you
remove them immediately, so no one can be writting checks on your deck.