I've spent too much of my summer working on this deck. I'm abosulutely positive I did things in all the wrong order.
I started out painting the whole thing. It looked sharp, except the h-brackets at the bottom of the posts looked rusty. Thinking I'd just pull them out and replace them, I dove in. Well, two of the 6x6 posts had dry rot.
Ok, so I pulled out the posts. Inspecion of the beams revealed some qyestionable areas. So now the 6x8 beams need to be replaced.
This might be a good time to point out that 6x8 doug fir is heavy. Really heavy. A genie lift finally solved the installation problem, but just priming and painting was tough.
AAAAnyway, I fabricated the knee braces, put it all together and it looks great. Except for the little bit of dry rot peeking out between a rim joist and 4x6 joist. One more time with feeling, I r&r'd the joist, rim joist, two 4x4 rail posts, a few deck boards, and a couple of balusters.
Ok, so what did learn?
I started out painting the whole thing. It looked sharp, except the h-brackets at the bottom of the posts looked rusty. Thinking I'd just pull them out and replace them, I dove in. Well, two of the 6x6 posts had dry rot.
Ok, so I pulled out the posts. Inspecion of the beams revealed some qyestionable areas. So now the 6x8 beams need to be replaced.
This might be a good time to point out that 6x8 doug fir is heavy. Really heavy. A genie lift finally solved the installation problem, but just priming and painting was tough.
AAAAnyway, I fabricated the knee braces, put it all together and it looks great. Except for the little bit of dry rot peeking out between a rim joist and 4x6 joist. One more time with feeling, I r&r'd the joist, rim joist, two 4x4 rail posts, a few deck boards, and a couple of balusters.
Ok, so what did learn?
- Dry rot is bad. Very bad. Bad like a rat. It has to be killed dead, right away, or disease will spread.
- When painting a deck you need to bring your A game. Splits in the wood need to be caulked. Dry rot (see #1) needs to be exorcised and filled with wood filler or the board completely replaced. Seal all board ends.
- That little trick they show you on Ask This Old House, of putting a nail between deck boards when installing is important. It provides breathing room so that debris does not collect, leading to dry rot (see #1).
- A hammer drill, borrowed from your buddy, is the perfect thing for drilling holes in the concrete footing for new braces, even though your buddy, once strong as an ox, can no longer hold up his end of a 6x8, causing sh%t fly all over the patio because you can't properly plan a deck retrofit.
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