Deck Replacement - Part 1

When we moved into our house two years ago, I knew that the deck was in need of replacement. Though not in any real danger of falling off the house, there were rotted boards all over the place, and individual board replacement would not be enough to salvage this deck.

Age was part of the problem, the rest was due poor design and construction that left gaps for leaves, needles and keys from nearby trees to collect in. The gutters high above the deck also clogged with these same leaves and after clogging dumped the water directly onto the deck from two stories up.

We picked the wood up a few months ahead of when I would start the project, then stacked and stickered it in the garage to dry out a little. For outdoor projects I prefer to stain them before installation, letting me easily get all four sides of the wood and so I wanted to give the wood a chance to dry before staining. The 10% off sale was another good reason to buy the wood early.

The only part of the deck I planned on saving were the joists under the deck, as I figured everything else was too rotten to reuse. As I tore the deck apart I could see that I was right. The more I took out the more I could see how rotten it was.





Even the support posts were rotting out - having been buried directly in the ground a few snapped off at ground level when I tried to pull them out.


Eventually I ended up with a large pile of rotten wood and a much smaller pile of usable wood. Though the tops of most joists had some rot, I planned to flip them over to reuse them so only two of the joists were completely unusable.

After pulling the ledger board from the house I found the worst rot. The ledger was bolted directly to the house, against the wood siding. I'm glad it was at least bolted with galvanized bolts into the joist and not decking screws, but the siding was ruined behind and below the ledger board. Parts of it were so rotted that it crumbled when I touched it.