A few weeks ago I posted a question about a mildewy deck. Tonight I got a call from my friends that own the deck, and they say the boards have buckled in two places. This, I gotta see, so I went.
For all you deck builders out there, what the heck happened? The Ipe decking (although they claim it to be mohogany, it’s not any mohogany I’ve ever seen) is 5/4 x 6″ wide, random lengths. It is fastened to the PT pine joists using plastic biscuits for alignment, and are toe-screwed on one edge using stainless steel trim-head deck screws. Underneath the deck (it’s about 10 feet off the ground) is a water diversion system constructed of corrogated fiberglass panels. There seems to be adequate room between the deck and panels for ventilation.
Evidently after all the rain last week (spring and winter) there was no more room for expansion, and to relieve the pressure, several different courses of decking buckled up. The screws remain in the joists, the heads being pulled through the edge of the decking.
The only decks I’ve done are PT face nailed, and I use 2×4 or 5/4×4 decking spaced with a 10d nail for an even gap. To me, it looks as though there wasn’t sufficient gap for the 6″ wide decking.
Thoughts?
Secondly, since I will probably end up fixing this fiasco, how to fix it? The present system seems to be inadequate, as the decking is experiancing cupping and twisting (some severe,) in addition to there being no gap between the boards, even after the buckling. I’m contemplating ripping up the decking, flipping it over, and face-screwing the decking down with SS deck screws.
And then there’s the whole railing issue, where the contractor took a top rail, inverted it for the bottom rail, and did nothing about the trough that now traps water at the bottom of the balusters, causing the through-nails to rust and fail. But I told them about that 2 years ago.
The builder has gone on to building houses and doesn’t return their phone calls. Sorry for the length.
Replies
Nick,
I installed a couple of tropical hardwood projects, and have had no complaints. But I face screwed. Having said that, we did a job for someone who had a mahogany deck that was about 5 years old and they were tearing it out. I was kind of shocked, so I asked why. He told me the stuff was a pain in the butt from the start. Mostly the instability, but also it had to be refinished frequently to look good. It was face screwed but still had cupped significantly and pulled away from the frame in many areas.
I wasn't pushing tropical hardwoods for my decks anyhow, but I definitely won't start either.
Its hard to say what the builder's liability is here. He certainly chose and expensive method of attaching the decking.
I've been pushing Eon myself. They have a lifetime guarantee on the materials.
Tom
Tom, Thanks for the reply. The owners had the deck built two years ago, and also have had nothing but problems with it. It mildews a few months after being refinished, making it look pretty ugly. Now this. They are pretty depressed about the whole situation.
You confirm a few thoughts I had; that this hardwood seems to be pretty unstable (expansion and contraction, cupping and twisting), that the method of installation wasn't adequate for the species of wood, and that face screwing it might be the best alternative. But having seen pics of some of ProDecks projects, I wonder if I'm missing something. Not every deck made of this stuff fails, right?
Anyway, the HOs (my friends) weren't thrilled with the prospect of ripping the deck down to the joists. Like throwing good money after bad. Their thought is, they've thrown enough money-good, bad, or indifferent-at the deck and shouldn't have to practically replace the thing after just 2 years.
The whole builder topic is another keg of nails. My friends are unwilling to persue this in court (as I'm sure the builder anticipates) so I've urged them to file a complaint with the Dept of Consumer Protection (they issue the licenses here in CT.) I hate to recommend that course of action, but the guy never even installed the shades for the skylights in the addition he built, and he claimed to have had them at home.
Ticks me off. Not that you can tell.
I never met a tool I didn't like!
can the cause be the panel below the decking holding water?
or does it drain well?
We wondered as well, but the rain does the drain thing pretty well; no standing water. And there seems to be sufficient space for ventilation. Not that rain can get to it now, since the boards have swollen to the point of the deck becoming one gigantic plank.
I never met a tool I didn't like!
Cheap and dirty maybe:
can you take a skill saw and open up the space between the boards a little as a diagnostic to see if they may just be too close together? One pass?
I did that in one area and it helped - also lets it drain better.
There's plastic biscuits between each course. Not to mention the screws in the edges. I'm contemplating pulling up the boards that are buckled, ripping off about an 1/8th or so, then face screwing them down. It would be 4 courses of the total, though I'm not sure if the deck won't buckle in other areas in the future.
And the home owner's are so ticked off, they're thinking a complete tear off would allow several other problems to be fixed as well. I just wish there was a better (less expensive) way to make the thing work as is built.
I never met a tool I didn't like!
This is going to be a problem for as long as the 5/4 by 6 material is down. I don't use the 5/4 by 6 anymore, way tooo many problems, I go with the 4 inch, spaced 1/4 ,face screwed, treated both sides before install, plenty of vent and pray. the cambara mahg blows up, cups, splits. Long term rip it up and go with 5/4 by 6 ipe with epty's or the 4 in cambara. I also live in sw ct good luck
Thanks for the news. I'm getting the hint the deck is headed for the obituary pages. 6" seemed too wide for the minimal gap they had.
Thanks for the reply.
I never met a tool I didn't like!
I work mostly in the Hamptons and have done my share of Ipe and that quick grow mohag. from Riverhead building and I have also used that annoying method of plastic biscuits on a composite 2x deck. The biscuit job was a fiasco but the other two decks mentioned looked beautiful. I have panellocked(premium only) the boards down and pre-drilled each hole for face nailing in order to drive a 2/3 inch stainless steel shingle nail into each hole. Then the nails are countersunk about one eighth and almost disappear but not quite. That is the price people pay for high end decks.