The boards on my deck are about 1" thick. I want to add on to my deck and the boards are now 1 1/4" Apparently sometime recently they made them thicker. I am not willing to replace the whole thing. So aside from shimming the end boards on the old deck and thus having a hump, what else can I do? I have been calling around to see if anyone has any stock of the older boards but so far no luck.
Deck Board Thickness
Jul 28, 2008
7 Replies
Lower the new joists 1/4"
Or, if for some reason that's not convenient (like they're already in place, perhaps), take a supply of 5/4 decking to a mill and have them plane them down.
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Or exaggerate the difference and make it a step.
Use a router to notch out the joists. Time consuming but easier than planing?
One inch sounds a bit thin. Is this wood or some material like Trex?
You could with a router cut approximately 1/4" deep "joist slots" on the bottom of the deck boards and thereby preserve most of the strength of the decking and all of the joist strength. You could probably get away with doing it only in the vicinity of your old decking.
As another poster mentioned, if it is wood, watch for shrinkage from green.
I did this on my old deck. I had a few 5/4 planks that needed to be replaced, but could only find the 2" anymore. I had to remove a couple extra boards to make room for the router, but it wasn't to hard to do.
I remember a little better now. I did that for one board, then realized it was much easier to router out the notches in the boards.
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