"Reversible decking boards" Please explain!

No, it's to improve grip when the boards have gone green with algae, which they will do pretty soon after installation, this stays slippery even when it's a dry day.

I think you should lay them the correct way - they're tannalised so rot isn't really your main problem, it's breaking an ankle each time you step onto them you should be more concerned with

"Phil L" wrote in news:Xt9Rn.43148$Of1.16406@hurricane:

I'll take your advice - thanks. I'll run out of ankles to break, pretty quickly, otherwise. (-;

Al

Sorry, this is complete bollox. Deck boards are no more slippery than slabs. Both suffer from algae.

First deck I built was mine 11 years ago, never been slippery. I must have built 40 decks at least since - never heard of a single problem.

No.

I've been building decks, over 40 of them, for over 10 years and never, ever had a problem with then being slippery.

They will become slippery if left to be covered in algae - but so will slabs - and slabs hurt a lot more if you fall.

I have a theory about most of the deck boards sold by the DIY sheds.

I have many books on decking construction - all published in the USA where decking originated. All of the decks shown have a smooth flat surface. IMO the grooves are to keep the boards straight. All the USA books show boards grooves down.

This is confirmed by experience. A 4.2m deck board 145mm x 28mm will be incredibly straight, no more than a few mm out over the run.

I reckon the numptys who run the sheds looked at the boards used in the USA and assumed incorrectly, through lack of experience, that the grooved side should be up.

This defies common sense, because with a grooved board over 50% of the surface isn't in contact with the sole of a shoe. With a flat board 100% of the board is in contact.

The boards I use are grooved on one side but the other side has the surface machined away to leave non slip ribs. See last picky on

Don't believe the decking luddites :-)

The Wickes ones that I'm currently using, are grooved on both sides - but one side has a finer pitched groove than the other. Their "how to" sheet seems to suggest that the 'big' groove side should be up. That is the way I am laying them. See the photo at the top of their website home page, and the photos in the sheet

Arfa

I assumed the different grooves on either side, which I also have on boards I bought from Focus, were to allow you to choose which you thought looked best.

Colin Bignell

Well I sorta thought that too, Colin, but this discussion pops up from time to time, and I've never really seen a definitive answer to it ...

Arfa

Nightjar > to" sheet seems to suggest that the 'big' groove side should be up.

Watching a Tommy Walsh prog last night where he was laying an oak floor. He pointed out the groves on the reverse & said they were to prevent the boards cupping. I also recall buying some French pine floor boards from Wickes which had groves underneath, pesumably for the same reason.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "The Medway Handyman" saying something like:

F*ck knows who wrote that. If the grooved side is up the contact pressure is greatly increased. Flat side would be great in the dry, but a grooved side would be better in the wet.

Ah - ha! Sooooo ..... which would be the anti-cupping grooves? The big equally spaced 'ugly' ones that everybody always puts 'up', or the shallower ones that are arranged in pretty patterns and actually look nicer, but that everyone puts 'down' in case they look a fool for putting them 'up' ...

The Wickes "how to" leaflet suggests big side up, as they tell you to position the fixing screws in the grooves, and the small ones would not be wide enough to accommodate the screw head. Mind you, the way those twin thread screws bite when being driven with a decent power driver, the head will pull below the surface, anyway !

Arfa

See ? Lots of good answers, but I'm still confused ... d :-| }

Arfa

thinking about it, sanding floors here, 120 year old tenement with pine floors, very flat on reverse, is after 120 years is cupping , which looks attractive on old floors, nothing worse than old oak flooring in setting thats been sanded totally flat.

Cheers Adam

AIUI anti-cupping grooves need to be on the heartwood side. Of the two decking boards I've ever bought (for a step oustide the shed I'm building today) one has them on the heartwood side and the othet has them on the sapwood side.

I suspect the main reason for the grooves is that, when the boards get wet, the water will run into the grooves, allowing the walking surface to dry out faster. GC has also pointed out that, when the walking surface is still wet, walking on a grooved surface increases the contact pressure and hence the grip you get.

I also think that a large expanse of timber will probably look better if the planks are grooved.

Colin Bignell

And so, when both sides are grooved, in different depths and patterns, which is right side up ... ?

There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza ........ :-))

Arfa

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JGH

on

Or the one with "classic" handyman focussing?

How would I know? Thats web speak!

What he was subtly saying is that photo is broken, all the other images have been uploaded to the web server and the filename adjusted to point to the uploaded file on the server, but that one file only exists on your PC, so it probably looks OK to you when you view that page, but we don't see that particular image ...