Crushed stone underneath deck

by Ron
(Maryville, TN)

My son is replacing his 12x10 deck due to age and condition. He told his mother that he needs to put in $200 worth of crushed stone in order to "level up" the ground underneath.

I'm not sure if he has been told this or if it's his idea. Is this a good thing to do or would this be an unnecessary additional expense? Our budget is somewhat limited.

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Editor's Comments:

Adding crushed stone underneath a deck is a great idea for the purpose of covering up the ground and making it look neat and tidy and preventing weeds from coming up - if you cover the sod or soil below with landscaping fabric also.

If you plan to reshape or rebuild the grade which it sounds like in your explanation this is a different matter. Yes that is a significant expense.

Crushed gravel is used as an "engineered fill" often in construction as it has known compression and loading values provided it rests on top of undisturbed soil below it.

But if you want to re level the grade then you may have to use quite a bit of gravel to achieve that. And that is added cost.

Also depending on the amount of stone required to get the level you are looking for you may have to install some retaining walls around the perimeter.

So it is not quite clear the extent of the landscaping you need to do. But generally speaking, stone underneath a deck with landscape fabric is good idea and a nice design touch.