Deck rebuild

A friend asked me to take a look at a deck that was built many years ago. He recently fixed up some of the exterior fencing and now the deck needs some real TCL. Wow…no kidding. An hour into it I had to stop and call him. There’s some SERIOUS rot going on at the house threshold.

My recommendation, rip it all out and replace and rebuild. Hopefully the house foundation rim board is not affected. Now this rot is a prime example of why I always recommend aluminium flashing where the house, deck ledge board and the siding starter strip meet.

Mid way through deck demolition.

That’s a 4×4 pressure treated post, rotten to the core. See the 1/4 inch plywood to the left and above it? Someone had laid that right over the pressure treated 2×10 deck boards. WRONG thing to do. That’s just a water trap.

This is the area that was under that plywood. Can you see the 2×10 rotten and falling to the ground? Even the 2×12 beams to the left are rotten. Notice how the dirt covers part of the end of that 2×12 beam (see red painted area) and has caused the wood to rot.

This is the scary part. Listen up homeowners… clean all debris from and near your home. Get into all the nooks and crevices, otherwise you end up with stuff like this.

Started re-installing joists, flashing, posts and deck boards and finished off with a few ideas of my own. 🙂