Deck - built badly

[kellyj00]

I moved in to a house with a badly built deck. They used 5/4" treated wood, but it's warping and bowing all over the place. There's 3/4" gap in some places.

Is it a good idea to pull the top boards up, run them through a surface planer, put sealer on them and then use them again, or are they garbage?

Also, I don't know why they started to warp as they are treated wood and they have three screws per joist placed around 16" apart. The wood was never sealed though, maybe that's it? It's only two-three years old according to the neighbors and has been in this bad of shape since I moved in about 18 months ago.

[avid_hiker]

Here is a link that may answer some questions/concerns.........

Sounds like the boards warped from drying out. And the gap would be from installing the treated board with a gap....they should be snug when installing (new board) too allow for drying. Go to the above link :-)

[kellyj00]

Great link, Thanks! Would anyone recommend using screws versus nails? I've seen some great decks built using nails, and it seems like an easier (and cheaper) way to do this.

[avid_hiker]

At the above link you will see that it tells you to predrill all holes so board does not crack/split. I see no reason why using a galvanized screw ,with a predrill type head wont do the trick. But if deciding to use nails............use galvanized...and predrill.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Proper screws are best, IMO. Nails are more prone to popping. There is a lot of deck information and fasteners at

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Regular galvanized is no longer the right material with the new pressure treated wood. Best to check to be sure what is used today.

[mm]

Most decks are boring, and are only made interesting, if at all, by the furniture and the people.

Your deck is already interesting. Now if you had gaps of 6 or 8 inches, it would be downright exciting**.

If you want to use nails, use spiral nails. They twist as you nail them in, but the whole deck and house has to twist for them to pop out.

I'm pretty sure my railings and posts and even the joists weren't treated, but the horizontal deck boards must have been. They were fine for 10 or 15 years, when I tried to seal them, but at 25 years they started to bend and pull their nails out of the joists, maybe because the joists were rotting. (I was going to use gutter screws to reattach the deck boards, but there was nothing left to screw them into.)

In my defense I intended to redo the whole deck this past spring, but I was fat, out of shape, and depressed.

I have big plans for next spring and plan to seek advice here soon.

**Remove every third or fourth deck board and you can make your current deck as exciting as the railroad train bridge I was walking on this summer. Every once in a while a tie was missing, and it really got my adrenalin going.

[Toller]

I don't know about the snug thing. I stained a 2 year old deck and it was a real bear because there were no gaps (and the slope was wrong) so there was no way to drain the deck when cleaning it. These boards sure didn't shrink.

[J.A. Michel]

Use fasteners that are marked "ACQ APPROVED". They'll hold up good unless you try to remove them. I built a deck this past July. Two weeks ago, I had to make a few small adjustments to the skirting underneath - which caused me to remove some of the screws. I was really surprised at how corroded the screws were from the pressure-treat chemicals. More that a few of the screws just snapped off.