Hi guys, like a few of you, I have been skulking around in the background gleening as much info as I could to assist in what was supposed to be a quick re-surface of our deck. wish I had have found this earlier, could have influenced a few decisions, but plenty of useful info none the less.

The deck was in place when we bought 7 years ago, and was not covered or cared for. I was always meaning to try and save it, but 7 years later it was way to late. We have plenty of reno's to do on the rest of the house so with this in mind the most cost efective solution seemed to be new boards and hope not to much astray with the structure. Yeh right!!! Started this in April and am just now all but finished.

Below is a shot of the condition. The ledger here was rotten from constant water run off from the porch.






The deck is 10 x 3.6 with a concrete porch along side at one end forming it all into and 'L' shape. I was going to deck over the concrete to form a slit level deck but the first wife wanted it all one level. "Too easy I say, I'll just rip up the porch, and I'll put a floor waste in the laundry while I'm at it" HA!

I wasn't expecting it to be an easy job, but one worth while. It was on average 4.5" thick with steel mesh. The Kanga hammer from work didn't touch it, a quick cut saw wasn't doing the back or gut any favours, so out with the big guns - a road saw.





I didn't think to take many step by step pic's, but I nded up demolishing the concrete step and prt of the brick wall. Fitted up a new ledger in treated pine, flipped the hardwood joists, and new 90 x 45 red treated LVL joists and bearer where the porch was.

Found the two Oregon end posts were rotten through where they were checked out for the bearer, so replaced all 4 with 100 x100 cypress. The bearers around the perimeter were about 200 x 75 hard wood and were mainly sound apart from the ends, These were replace with 190 x 45 Tretaed pine, extra short posts (stumps) under and lifted so the deck boards butt up flush rather than over hang. The hard wood bearers were flipped. The ledger on the house and the centre bearer were ok but also restumped the centre bearer at the ends.





I had originally scored a pack (500lm) of 88 x 19 mixed Aussie reds but when I opened it they were that bad I don't think I would have covered 2/3 of the job. thankfully the guy took them back. I then used 90 x 19 Merbau.

Next shots are with the top under way. Still need to build steps for the far end and enclose under with more merbau planks.





Oil or Spa n deck was a big decision, and also colour. I will be using Feast Watson - Natural.

I will get some more pics when finished.

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