But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. I want to show you exactly how they work but first I’d like to share with you a quick story about how the Titan Deck Foot™ came to be…

How A Father's Words Set A Young Boy Straight

I come from a long line of ‘builders'. My father and his father before him were both builders. It's no surprise then that I began building things at a young age. While other friends relied on their fathers to build their tree houses and skateboard ramps, I built my own.

One of the things my father taught me as I watched him in the workshop building furniture or cabinets or building our backyard patio – whatever – he did it all – was attention to detail. My father was a “stickler” for details and not just measuring twice, cutting once, but things had to look good on the outside and the inside.

That’s right, even if you didn’t see it my dad made sure that everything looked good.

He always told me that people judge you by the quality of your work and your work is a direct reflection of who you are as a person. It means you care and above all it’s a lasting statement of your work ethic and character.

So I took that as my starting point and began my building career always trying to make things beautiful for my customer.

Not only did I want to make things look good but improving the methods of building beautiful things mattered. And this philosophy is something I have always tried to make as an integral part of my work and my company. This product, just like all my others, represents this philosophy.

When Blue Collar Work Ethic Met Artful Thinking

It's the “Art of Building” - not just slapping things together – that I am in love with. It's not just superficial. It's knowing that the beauty and elegance you see on the outside lives deep inside that tool, that building - or a person. That means intelligently, beautifully and elegantly designing products and methods of building that reflect the art in any building project.

And making it possible for the average person just like you, who may not have years of experience, to be able to use a helpful product or tool to build something that looks amazing and makes you feel like a true artisan when you see your beautiful handiwork - is the highest honor.

Frustration Is The Mother Of Invention?

Some say necessity is the mother of invention but I think sometimes frustration is.

Digging is back breaking work if you do it yourself. Hiring a crew with an auger at $50 a hole is expensive if you have a dozen holes. I have a feeling that you and I are kindred spirits if you are reading this. I can almost bet you found this web page because you were looking for a solution to the same frustration.

When building decks for clients I noticed some recurring issues…

		The biggest effort was always building the deck foundations. It was the only aspect of building that I did not look forward to. It’s brutal, physical work digging, dropping deep footings, back filling soil, mixing cement, sloping them, aligning and accurately dropping in the post anchors. And then waiting, and waiting for it to set and cure before you get back to work.
		I had to mix and pour cement as soon after digging the holes as possible because all would be lost – and frequently was - if it rained which during a hot humid summer was every afternoon at about 4 o’clock! The entire hole would fill up with water and collapse the soil, soak the cardboard form, fill the plastic bell shaped footing with muck!! If you saw two full days of labor and materials ruined – lost – because of this and the fact you have to do it all over again – you would go nuts. If that's not Frustration what is!?!
		As much as 25%- 30% of my entire materials and labor costs could easily go to building a traditional concrete footing system. This was a huge line item as a builder and as a home owner or DIYer you will find out yourself when you do this.
		Ninety percent of the decks I was building were eight feet high or less and with proper bracing could easily be built as free standing or floating decks. No need to worry about a complicated ledger attachments and best of all, no code requirement to install concrete footings sometimes as deep as the basement foundation.
		Using inexpensive concrete “deck blocks” was problematic for my clients. Most people did not like looking at them if the support posts were visible. Any deck using them in a high wind zone - which is almost 2/3 of the country - required a webbing of cables and ground spikes wrapped over the framing to keep it from being launched into the air.
		The blocks also did not work with 6x6 support posts and it was really challenging to use them when you wanted a low level deck less than 10” above the ground.

The bottom line was that I was unnecessarily spending a ton of money, time and needless frustration installing massive traditional concrete footings for a lightweight structure that ninety percent of the time wasn’t required.

Too Cheap Or Too Expensive

Nothing on the market fit the bill.

There were commercially engineered helical anchoring systems that required invasive machinery and a specialized team of installers. Sure they could hold up a house, but they cost a lot of money and it was overkill for what was needed. And the machinery often makes a mess of your yard.

There were jack hammer or sledge hammer installed footings that were really modified fence post spikes. But using a jack hammer was intimidating for homeowners and a hassle to go and rent. Sledge hammers are brute strength operated.

And in either case these products were tough to remove and reinstall if you ever hit an obstacle halfway down.

And then there was the old standard - concrete blocks for ten bucks or less. But that was all it was worth and it was limited to the simplest of needs and not for beautiful strong ground connections.

There was clearly a huge need for a product that…

		Didn’t require digging, mixing cement, footing and tube forms, and post anchors.
		Securely held the deck to the footing and the footing was anchored deeply into the ground so it could withstand high winds.Didn't use visible external metal brackets.
		Didn’t need heavy invasive machinery to chew up the backyard to install.
		Could be installed by anyone with a lightweight hand held tool instead of jack hammers or sledge hammers.
		Was user friendly enough that it could go in and out as needed to get the location perfect or avoid rocks or obstacles.
		Looked clean and finished as opposed to a bulky concrete block.

In a perfect world, what was needed was something that anyone of any age or skill level could easily drive into the ground, and back out again if needed to get locations perfect and that could be deeply buried and anchored into the earth for security.

It had to be installed with an inexpensive, commonly available hand tool that wasn’t intimidating, or hard to use.

It had to easily adapt to different sizes of support posts – 4x4 or 6x6 - as needed and be useful for getting deck framing really low to the ground if desired. And finally it had to look good if it was visible.

Quite a tall order indeed. I sensed an opportunity here - for myself, my customers and anybody else like you who needed a simple solution to these problems.

I'd like to say something romantic like I went to a cabin back in the woods to think in solitude about a product that would fill these needs but that just wasn't the case.

The "Secret" Was To Create A Solution Using A Hand Held Tool That Could Go Into The Ground Or Reverse Out Just As Easy

Looking at heavy duty engineered helical anchors exposed one of the problems for coming up with a solution for lighter weight structures. These heavy duty ground anchors needed a big hydraulic drill and it could go down or come back out if needed.

But wouldn't it be great if you could walk around anywhere you wanted and just install one quickly? So that is exactly the solution that evolved...

Get a copy of our brochure.

What is The Titan Deck Foot™?

The Titan Deck Foot™ is a unique helical deck post anchor and cap plate system that installs effortlessly in minutes using a light weight commonly available impact wrench.

It allows you to use a variety of post brackets for 4x4 or 6x6 posts and is anchored deeply into the ground.

It is a huge time and money $aver for building high quality floating decks or light weight structures instead of using concrete footings.

You can frame decks lower to the ground than using blocks and it looks clean and attractive if exposed.

Actual Size: 12-1/4"x12-1/4"x24" (6x6 Post Connector)
Hot Dip Galvanized

Our patent pending "Terra-Shift" technology that we developed for our post brackets, protects your support post to beam connections in the event of seasonal soil movements.

It allows any support post under a beam to slide up and down independently in the bracket whenever there is any uneven force or stress.

So all your critical connections remain protected.

It's like have a shock absorbers for your deck footings and posts!

Get the Titan Deck Foot™ and:

What about Frost and Soil and Building Codes?

Great question.

The Titan Deck Foot™ should only be used for lightweight free standing or floating decks or structures. That means no connections to the house. The deck will move as the soil moves, if it moves, and will settle back to its normal resting state.

The building code already speaks about floating foundations systems and those structures that are allowed to use them.

See Section R403.1.4.1 Exceptions 1 to 3.

What matters most is you use enough footings to safely distribute the weight and never exceed the bearing capacity of the soil.

Here is our Footing Quantity Calculator

How The Titan Deck Foot™ Works - In Just Over 2 ½ Minutes

Imagine being able to install dozens of footings in a couple of hours and start building right way. How much time and money would that save?

Check out this video and see how quick it goes. Just for your info, I installed 24 deck footings for this massive deck - all before lunch hour.

As you can see from the video, driving the anchor into the ground is like using a big screw driver. There was 6" layer of compact stone and then clay soil below. The impact wrench is so easy to use. And if you want to realign you can back it out just as easy.

Try doing that with a jack or sledge hammered ground spike. Not easy.

Here Is The Summary Of Steps

		With our new "Direct Drive" system, place a 12mm or 1/2" socket over the exposed hex head drive of the auger and used an impact wrench to drive the auger or anchor rod down into the ground. The new hex head "Direct Drive" system is so reliable, it never slips and you can drive the auger down or up with the flick of a switch!
		Drive the auger down until the load plate contacts the ground and is pushed up against the underside of the large nut.
		Now switch to the large 30mm or 1-3/16" socket and drive the large nut down compressing the cap plate further against the soil and tensioning the anchor rod and helix in the ground until the underside of the cap plate contacts the stop washer underneath the load plate..
		Install your post anchor bracket.
		Go grab yourself a cold drink and now you're ready to start building.

7 Reasons Titan Deck Footings™ Are The Right Solution For Securely Anchoring Your Floating Deck To The Ground

Now that you know how the Titan Deck Foot™ system works an affordable alternative to concrete deck foundations, I'd like to quickly reiterate why you should use them for your deck or patio project if it's free standing...

1. You'll save a ton of money, time and effort compared with digging tradtional concrete footings.

2. Your posts will be high and dry. Air is free to flow around them prolonging their life.

3. You'll love looking at clean post bases if they are exposed. They don't cheapen the look of your beautiful deck and home.

4. You can frame decks lower to the ground more easily. If you are building a low level deck you have seen how simpler it is to get your framing closer to the grade than work around systems like a block.

5. Your posts and deck is securely connected to your footings. A surface block system relies entirely on the weight of the structure to hold it in place.

6. You can use 6x6 posts or 4x4 posts. Most other solutions allow for only 4x4 posts.

7. Your footings are securely anchored to the ground. Unlike surface blocks that need to be anchored with cables and ground spikes in wind zones you have confidence your deck won't blow away.

Given the benefits of the Titan Deck Foot™, I think we'd both agree that you'd be silly not to use them -- as long as the price is right...