Choosing the Wooden Deck: Have the Right Choice

Pamela Soto
Posted by February 27, 2022 January 9, 2023

As soon as you start Trex composite decking breckenridge co with the help of deck builders melbourne, be sure that you don’t break the law or the rules of your neighbors. Determine the precise borders of your property before moving on to the next step. Finally, depending on the municipality, a permit may be required: evidence of the property’s boundaries and a design of the deck supporting it. For this reason, if you haven’t already, give your local government a call to find out what their needs are before you begin. For the wood deck Toronto based services, you can have the right deal there.

Wooden Deck: Solid Base

Decks can move for different reasons, but mainly because of freeze/thaw cycles. This is why it is recommended to bury the base more than 4 or 5 feet. This way, the frost will not affect the drumsticks. This step can be done on your own rather easily.

  • Dig with a shovel or a mechanical gas auger
  • Place a cardboard sono-tube at the bottom of the hole
  • Level
  • Backfill
  • Mix the concrete (preferably with Portland cement or with cementations additions)

Clay has a tendency to expand and shrink depending on its moisture content. If you build on soil that has a high content of it, the deck could be affected by heavy rains and long periods of drought.

Rock Beds

If you come across a bed of bedrock, that’s a good thing. Beware: a large pebble is not necessarily a bed of substrate, although if you bang it and it feels really solid, the bottom of it is probably below the frost line, in which case you can erect the deck using it as a base.

Screw piles

The piles are screwed into the ground, still below the frost line, and serve as a structure. Effective for building a deck, just make sure they are level. These can be purchased at any big box home improvement store and usually have a hole that allows a 2×4 to be used as a lever. Be careful though: as they are not as wide as the sonotubes, the room for maneuver is more limited. If your soil is very rocky, it’s best to hire a professional to lay it, under $200 a pile, in most areas.

Deck Blocks or Elephant Legs

Instead of being sunk below the frost line, the structure here is “floating”, deposited directly on the ground. It’s a simpler and cheaper way to build the deck, but it can be more demanding to keep everything perfectly level, and it could require more maintenance over time, as the risk of settling is high.

For more durability, the blocks can be insulated against frost. Simply lay a rigid board under the deck and around the foundations and cover the whole thing with crushed stones. For more durability, it is better to put sonotubes or screw piles below the frost level.

Choose Your Deck or Patio Materials

Treated wood is now less toxic than it once was, but its environmental impact is still less benign than that of natural wood. Its treatment does not penetrate deeply into the wood and the cut ends leave an unprotected surface. It is best to use products from the following, both for environmental impact and service life.