T&G V's decking.

[neddy]

Good evening gang. I'm still on my front porch reno. And can't decide between using tonge and grove boards or normal decking bords (with the 3mm gap between them). Considering the verandah deck is under cover and most of the houses in the area have T&G (weatherboards 1930's) I'm just wondering what your thoughts on the subject are..............what would you do if it was your place. I'll be using jarrah or merbau either way. Chow

[vsquizz]

Neddy, I like the look of T&G and I like the functionality of the deck. With the decking all the crap falls through the gaps, works to keep the house clean, its great. Clean it out once every 20 years and collect all the coins:D . Jarrah works for me.


Cheers

[MarkV]

I will be doing a similar job when I reclaim my front verandah that has been closed in. I would suggest decking boards as they seem to last and look better and are easier to get a really good coat or recoat of finish ( OIL ) on . In my experience the T&G seem to get daggy around the edges of the verandah and tend to cup and hold water and other gunk as vsquizz pointed out. I would also consider closing the gap to 1 or 2 mm as they always seem to shrink a bit more no matter how dry they are and a 5mm gap is a bugger to pick up pencils etc out of if you drop em on the deck. :)

[vsquizz]

I agree, where the ends of T&G are exposed to the weather they should be capped, even if you have to rout a groove in a face board and put up with a bit of a lip. The constant expansion and contraction just makes the T&G open up otherwise. There's otherways though.

Go the oil finish (tung oil junkie)

Cheers