Remember last summer when you were entertaining guests on your backyard deck, enjoying each other's company while gathered around the barbecue? Looking forward to doing more of that this year? Keep in mind, winter is hard on wooden decks, so before your family and your guests start to use your deck in the spring, you'll want to make sure it's in good shape for the season. Here are some ways to check how your deck survived the winter--as well as some tips on make any necessary repairs. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
Make Basic Repairs to Your Wooden Deck
1. Start by checking if all your deck boards are still sound. Knots or holes in boards will hold moisture, and over time, the extra moisture will rot the board.
2. Use an ice pick, a long straight nail or the point of a screwdriver and stick it into any places where you suspect there could be wood rot. Sound (not rotted) wood will resist, while rotted wood will be soft and flaky and the point will penetrate easily. Mark any rotted boards for replacement.
3. Walk slowly over your entire deck, checking to see if any nail heads have popped up over the winter. A protruding nail head can cause someone to catch their foot and fall or give someone walking on bare feet a nasty cut that would require a tetanus shot.
4. Use your hammer to reset any nail heads that have popped and ensure the boards are firmly fastened by driving in a new "Ardox" (spiral, galvanized) nail, or even better, a brass screw inserted close to the original nail head.
5. Take a grip on any deck rails or builtin seats and give them a strong shake. If you feel any looseness you'll need to either reinforce them with new nails/screws or rebuild them.
Remove Deck Boards
6. Removing boards that are screwed down is easy--simply back out the screws and lift off the board.
7. Removing a nailed-down board that extends to the edge of your deck is also fairly simply. Use your hammer on the underside of the deck board where it extends over the edge and drive the board upward. Once you've created a gap, insert your bar and pry the board up from the end. On long boards, once they've been loosened at the end, move in along their length and pry them up from the side.
8. Removing a board that doesn't extend over the edge of the deck is more work. One way is to first cut through the board (between the joists) with a reciprocating saw, then position your pry bar under the board close to a joist and pry the cut board up in two sections.
9. Alternatively, if you don't have a reciprocating saw, you could use a power drill with a 1-inch bit to drill a hole in the board (between the joists), then use a key hole hand saw to cut the board into two pieces. Once the board is cut, use your pry bar to remove the pieces.
10. Replace any deck boards you've removed by fastening them with screws, which makes them less vulnerable to "nail pops" and also easier to remove when maintaining your deck.
Tags: your deck, between joists, board between, board between joists, board that
