Decking; Joists; Support Posts; Pea Shingle and Porous Membrane !!

Here is Blog the Third

So, having got rid of the old deck; it was time to turn our attention to the ordering and receiving of materials for the replacement version. We had much advice about decking materials, particularly the actual decking boards, but we decided against one of the  most expensive decking boards known to mankind, otherwise known as Kebony; we did look at this, but at over £60.00 per 4.8 metre deck board we thought this was not for us (we needed 70 of these long boards plus some shorter ones; so going for the Wickes offering with a 33% discount for bulk purchase at £8.68 each for the long boards turned out quite a bit cheaper; I will leave you to do the maths !).

Also, as indicated by the title of this blog, we needed quite a lot more than just the top layer of deck board; and our initial Wickes shopping list was for:-

70 x 4.8 metre deck boards; 20 x 3.6 metre deck boards; 44 x 3 metre heavy duty decking joists; 15 x 1.2 metre decking posts; 6 rolls of Heavy Duty Landscape Fabric; 1 x Jumbo Bag of Pea Shingle; 1 x Large Tin of Clear Decking Preserver.

As this was rather a large order, and Wickes will only deliver to the kerbside, we asked for this order to be split into two consignments; in theory giving us a rest between deliveries and a chance to get started on some of the ground work before the decking boards arrived !!

Regrettably, when the day for the first delivery arrived we found that the driver had got our complete order - except for 1 of the shorter deck boards and the Pea Shingle - so rather than send him away we accepted the whole order and then had to spend several hours moving everything to the back garden.

Having had a chance to look at the actual deck boards during this process, we noticed that quite a number were not acceptable, with large knot holes and large splits and other unsightly markings.

So, we called them up and listed the boards we thought were unacceptable (15 of the long boards and 10 (50%) of the shorter boards). Somewhat surprisingly, and this is where Wickes was very good, our opinion was not questioned and Wickes agreed to replace all the faulty boards when delivering the outstanding items.

They also agreed to take away the faulty boards, and we therefore carried these 25 boards back out the front for the next scheduled delivery; this time, although the driver had our replacement boards, and the missing 3.6m board, (and some concrete fence posts that we had not ordered and which we rejected), he still had no pea shingle and, worse than that, he had had no instructions to take away any faulty material; so we had to carry both new good boards and old faulty boards back to the rear garden.

The saga regarding the delivery of the pea shingle then went on for a further few weeks (during which period we had visitors) but finally it was delivered and all materials were to hand for the project.

The pictures below were taken before the arrival of the pea shingle, so if you could use your imagination for a Jumbo Bag that would be helpful !

So now we have removed the old deck, and have all the materials for the replacement project to start; I also bought myself a new cordless drill/screw driver (and a large tub of external grade screws), and a large mains powered circular saw (with laser guide); so watch this space for the start of the re-construction work, in Blog the Forth coming very soon.

Out With The Old

Just when you thought that this was going to be a single posting blog !! Here, after some delay, is Blog the Second.

In Blog the First, you will have seen what the damaged deck was really like; and will have also heard the story about how it got like that!

So, having tried to patch it up, which did not work, it was agreed that the whole lot would have to be replaced.

Then, just as I was about to start this task; some pipework in our utility room ceiling decided to spring a leak and we had to turn our attention to dealing with that first . . . calling in an emergency plumber and getting in touch with the insurance company, finding a builder to do the repairs etc etc . . . anyway that's another story; and the ceiling gets fixed, the utility room gets repaired, some cupboards get replaced, the whole room gets repainted . . . and the insurance company pays up (following a visit from a loss adjuster, who decided our claim was reasonable and should be paid in full).

Anyway, whilst all that was going on in the background, I got started on pulling up the old decking; and during my first full day at this I managed to remove around 55 square feet which is a bit over 5 sq metres; (and I can image various people reaching for their calculators to check the conversion).

Most of Day 1 was spent removing decking boards that had been screwed down (during our attempts to patch up); rather than the original boards which had all been "nailed down" using an industrial staple gun (much quicker to put down; much more difficult to get up, particularly when the boards have been seriously weakened by damp over a number of years).  And, just to give some idea of the scale of the total job I had undertaken, this Day 1 area represented about 1/11th of the total deck area to be removed.

During Day 2, when I was dealing with mostly nailed down boards, I developed a "leverage" system to prise up reasonable lengths of the old boards (rather than trying to use a crowbar, which tended to just lift up a small piece at a time) . . . see photographs below.  By the end of Day 2 I had increased the lifted area to just over 11 sq metres (about 120 sq ft for those that prefer imperial measures). So Archimedes was right about levers !!

Occasionally I did get some support, and the odd cup of coffee (Note: two cups in the picture below), from the Clerk of Works, who also kept count of the number of boards removed on a daily basis and identified my target for the next day's work !!

By Day 3, having got the hang of the leverage system, I increased my rate of progress and I am pleased to announce that, apart from a weekend off (Malaysian Grand Prix), I managed to complete the whole Stage One process (removing the old decking boards, the original support framework and the original framework support posts) within a total period of 7 working days.

By the way, this also included lifting out and stacking all the rubble, from my old barbecue and adjoining decorative wall, that our original deck installation crew had buried beneath the deck rather than removing; some of the rubble can be seen in the next photograph.

Fortunately this work was done during the time when we had some reasonable weather, with no interruptions for rain, and therefore good progress was made.

One of the tricky bits was finding a place to store the garden furniture - rather than under the trees where the birds tend to use it for target practice - so here it is resting temporarily on the last remaining section of the old decking

For the final sections of deck edging, it was a return to the crowbar, as there was nowhere to get the edge of a lever.

Finally, it was all up and stored in the garden, as one large pile of rubble, one large pile of small pieces of wood, one pile of incomplete deck boards, and one stack of mostly complete deck boards.

Then came the problem of how to get rid of it; the longest desk boards at 3m were too big to go in a skip, and I didn't fancy sawing up more than 60 planks; however an on line search for rubbish clearance led me to Guildford Rubbish Clearance, basically a man with a son and a lorry who turned up on time and loaded up all the unwanted materials and took everything away . . . much cheaper than a skip; and they did all the work  (a bargain !!).

So that's the end of Phase One; next comes the final selection, ordering and receiving of the materials for the new Deck; that will be deck boards, deck joists, support posts, and lots and lots of screws (not a nail is to be used anywhere in this project). Also to be ordered is porous landscape material (definitely not polythene !!) to be laid over the earth, lots of decorative pea shingle to go over that and decking preserver to be used where any boards are cut or drilled into.

In due course come back to this space for more exciting episodes in the great Newsham Road Decking Project. 

In The Beginning

OK so the unofficial Michael blog has been rumbled, so as being partly responsible for this I felt the need to carry on the good work started by Michael and bring you regular news about the "Project".

Also the unofficial photographer did have to operate in a rather clandestine manner, whilst I shall be able to bring you a different (closer) perspective on the work in progress.

So I thought for this first blog I would go back to the start and provide some previously unseen "before" images.

As previously explained, the original deck was built just about 10 years ago in time for an earlier significant birthday party for Jane; however the builders did not understand the difference between porous membrane material and plastic sheeting and managed to place plastic sheeting between the original sub frame members and the deck boards (they might have got away with plastic sheeting if they had put this on the ground - to keep the weeds down - but they didn't); consequently when it rained, water collected beneath the deck boards (image a lake) and gradually rotted pretty much everything (over a period of about 8 years) until it started to show and then eventually people started to fall through !! At this point, having replaced quite a few boards, in the hope of saving the deck, we gave up on this approach and decided that the whole thing needed to be ripped out and rebuilt.  And being a retired person with nothing much else to do, it seemed quite clear that I should do this myself rather than getting involved with another bunch of dodgy ne're do wells.

So, and without further ado, here are a few pictures of the beginning of the project or rather the "end of life" of the original deck.

You can see the original deck boards (painted white at some stage) which are well rotted from below; and also some of the replacement boards, that we installed about eighteen months ago.

Laying casually on the rotting deck is one of the small samples of deck boards we obtained to see what we thought we liked.