New Decking, at Least

[hbmcc]

About three/four years ago and before the original 1985 treated and pressure treated joists deteriorate too much, I decided to redeck the back forty; including the latest in building and deck protection, too. I started the end of June after spending a year collecting 100) 5/4 x 4 cedar, picking the better pieces from racks at HD and Lowes. I procrastinated two years, knowing the project would put me in the hospital if not kill me.

Will see how long it takes ... to finish, or fail.

[attachment=19383]

This will be the third deck surface. The previous have been 1x4 trim wood which has a paucity of knots but struggles to span 16-inches without feeling like a diving board. Each year a 32nd, or so, is stripped off when pressure washing moss and algae, so demise is pretty certain by the tenth to 15th year. I had it decked last in 1999. The carpenter tried intermediate 2x4s that only made a mess instead of helping reduce bounce.

Two things were really irritating about the last 40 years of deck. The nails through the surface look like crap, and; those nails creep. Summers are dangerous for bare feet when the boards shrink. The second irritation is at least one butt joint with varied end-of-board width in the span. There are few boards over 20 feet in length and none fully span the almost 40 feet of length. 

No plastic alternative will come off working or looking better. It doesn't seem to last longer either. Finally, wood is getting worse in quality every year and material costs have been doubling about 4 to 5 years. I started by paying $3.25 per 10' piece. A year later they were nearly $5. Today the board is $8. And, my truck is a Prius, restricted to ten feet, twelve maximum length. 

A third problem reared its head when I peeled up the first deck board next to the house siding. The deck butts into the house siding (cedar lap) and had rotted the first siding face next to the deck. I needed to design a solution for these three issues. 

[attachment=19382]

[Snipe Hunter]

I haven't seen cedar in Lowes or HD since... well, never.

[brianwelch]

I haven't seen cedar in Lowes or HD since... well, never.

Cedar is creeping in to the areas where the demographics seem to be a little more upscale. Lowe's, Princeton, NJ, had plenty several years ago...Lowe's 15 miles away in Langhorne, PA not until just recently...

[Snipe Hunter]

Cedar is creeping in to the areas where the demographics seem to be a little more upscale. Lowe's, Princeton, NJ, had plenty several years ago...Lowe's 15 miles away in Langhorne, PA not until just recently...

Interesting.

I'd like to see it here. I have a 12ft shed build on a ground level slab. Of course it's got water problems because of being built on a ground level slab. I'm considering jacking it up, laying a coarse of block and setting it on the block. Then residing. It's visible from the street and cedar siding would look nice.

[Willyou]

My deck is 10' x about 30'. Like yours and many others, the deck boards ran the length of the deck and needed a number of butt joints. As you said, splintering and warping can create dangerous conditions at these joints. The first time my deck boards needed replacing, I re-oriented the joist system so that I could run all the decking in the 10' direction. No more butt joints.
I have also had problems with siding and posts rotting. If you do a web search on "deck flashing", you will find a lot of information about how to flash and seal your deck components, especially your ledger board.

[hbmcc]

Yes, out here on the Left Coast cedar is Western Red. And, it is King.

I agree about joist orientation, but  rebuilding means new codes. The old joists are almost pristine. I will cover them with Vycor (Grace) horizontal protection. One thing I learned is that the 2000 preservative changes allow faster destruction of pressure treated wood. The old above grade wood is very durable, and without all the damage puncturing causes.

I think the only clean protection at the house siding is to run metal flashing into the second course of bevel siding. Then extend it out horizontally farther than the 1.5 to 2" of the present flashing. I am going to turn the decking 45-degrees and have the butt end stand proud of the house wall about a half inch. The standoff works well in a lower section of deck, not shown in the two images. I'd like to have a clear gap so debris won't accumulate so readily.

[Snipe Hunter]

I've now been a home inspector for a little over 3 years. Since then I've had a paradigm shift in many ways. I love the look of cedar(or any wood) sided homes but I'd never use it on my own home. It's very rare that I inspect a wood sided home without some degree of rot, splitting, warping etc., no matter what the species of wood. I'm amazed how many people sink 4x4's/6x6's into the ground for deck posts as opposed to sitting on a concrete pier/piling. If they pour a footer at the bottom of the hole, they backfill it with dirt instead of stone. That is basically building a concrete bottom bath tub for the post. Wet wood rots. The newer formula for pressure treating is not nearly as effective as the old stuff so now it rots faster and it eats the zinc on the fasteners. Even though it's rated for "ground contact", that doesn't mean it's a good idea. I can generally tell if a deck was built with permits or not if I see no flashing over the ledger board or if a beam is not sitting on a post or in a notch in the post and only supported by lag bolts. Lag bolts don't meat code and do not are not rated to support the load of a deck. Neither are through bolts. Or if the post is a 4x4 instead of a 6x6. I can't tell you how many times I've been able to push an awl all the way into a deck post up to it's handle, just below the surface. I inspect home in neighborhoods where the HOA requires cedar siding. Often these home are in wooded areas and don't get much sunlight so the cedar stays wet for extended periods of time. The whole neighborhood is rotting. Exterior wood takes a tremendous amount of maintenance and people just don't do the maintenance. Same with rain gutters. Houses surrounded with tall trees and standard sized residential gutters... clogged downspouts so the heavy rain just roles over the gutters, splashing on the ground and soaking the wood siding. I see a lot of ground contact with wood siding or mulch piled against the wood siding. The stuff never has a chance to dry out. Instead of installing larger gutters, they cover them with gutter guards which also clog, compounding the issue. I inspected a cedar sided house last week in a very nice neighborhood with no eves. So rain basically just runs down the entire exterior wall. No kickout flashing in the roof either. Every window in the house needs to come out and the "wood" stool needs to be replaced. There was siding rot everywhere kickout flashing should have been installed. The house it 20 years old, it needs roof sheathing replaced, siding replaced and possibly windows replaced and who knows what they'll find when the look behind the siding.

I just don't get it. We have all the modern materials and techniques necessary to build a maintenance free exterior and a lot of them are cheaper than wood and all of them are cheaper than maintenance and repairs.

If anybody gets a chance to look at homes in the coastal Carolinas and see how they build them, you'll be in for a treat. Quality vinyl or cement siding, vinyl or aluminum clad windows, lots of room between grade and the bottom plate of the wall, proper eves etc.

[hbmcc]

Did you play "Snipe Hunter" as a child? "Snipe, snipe; here snipe". 

I've read the 2014(?) deck code--prescriptive-- and frankly, the writers are complete idiots. There is no way I will notch a pressure treated post. And, no engineer will be paid if they parrot the s88t in that document. My deck also serves as a means of egress. No way am I going to engineer it to rip down the house when an earthquake hits. If it rots and falls, the house better stay protected. There! I feel better.

Over the years I have seen a lot of experimental methods employed in construction. They can turn into a hell of a lot of money to save a few dollars. One experience was a Habitat house with all the bells and whistles. Giving the new owners matches for a fire in the oven would be more useful than the closet full of gizmos and controls. One of the volunteers fell onto a slick polished floor they installed to meet gold or platinum LEED status. He went to the hospital. No company made door jambs to accommodate rubber gaskets at drywall terminations to avoid heating interior wall cavities.

I have seen garbage I rejected as designer be reintroduced to new, naive jurisdictional inspectors. 

Sometimes, the methods are cool, functional, and work. I hated specifying concrete backfill for posts, but knew every contractor and developer would explode if I drew it correctly. Northern Europeans were building in and on free draining gravel to solve a slough of construction problems.

But here in US, there is no place for intelligence. Or, experienced knowledge. Actually, an old professional told me the same thing when I was 15, and I am saying it now, also.

[Snipe Hunter]

Notching a support post or sitting the beam on top of the post to carry the load of a deck beam is code just about everywhere I know of in the states.

[hbmcc]

Notching a support post or sitting the beam on top of the post to carry the load of a deck beam is code just about everywhere I know of in the states.

That's why the code displays utter stupidity when it prescribes notching for beams. Preservative chemicals may penetrate pressure treated wood a half-inch. Rot and bugs will show you where protection ends. 4.5 inches (6x6) will be destroyed just as fast as a 4x4 (2.5"). This is the exterior deck code I refer to.