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 \u2014 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 \u2014 the board will take up moisture and expand.<\/p>\n Use nothing but stainless steel \u2014 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