Most of the early failures we see on site come from installation, not material. Three details decide whether a deck lasts ten years or three.<\/p>\n
The underside of the board has to breathe as freely as the face. Leave at least 30\u201340 mm<\/strong> of clear air below the joists, and make sure both ends of that void are open. A void closed at one end does not ventilate: it traps moisture and rots the board from below.<\/p>\n The gap between boards is both drainage and expansion allowance. On kiln-dried hardwood, 5\u20138 mm<\/strong> is right. If the timber is wet at installation, work to the lower figure; if it is dry, work to the upper one: the board will take up moisture and expand.<\/p>\n Use nothing but stainless steel: A2, or A4 near the coast. Galvanised coatings react with the tannin in hardwood and leave permanent black staining around every screw. Fix each board with two screws at every joist<\/strong>, and pre-drill.<\/p>\n End grain is the thirstiest surface on the board. Seal every cut end with an end-grain sealer. Lay boards parallel to the fall so water runs off rather than ponding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Choosing the right timber is half the job. Most of what shortens a deck\u2019s life happens at the fixing detail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-installation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/basaranorman.com\/en\/wp-json\/\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/basaranorman.com\/en\/wp-json\/\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/basaranorman.com\/en\/wp-json\/\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basaranorman.com\/en\/wp-json\/\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basaranorman.com\/en\/wp-json\/\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/basaranorman.com\/en\/wp-json\/\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basaranorman.com\/en\/wp-json\/\/wp\/v2\/media\/353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/basaranorman.com\/en\/wp-json\/\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basaranorman.com\/en\/wp-json\/\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basaranorman.com\/en\/wp-json\/\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Joint width<\/h2>\n
Fixings<\/h2>\n
Board direction and end grain<\/h2>\n