Resurfacing a Deck: New Wood on Existing Joist Structure
The picture to the right shows an existing 20′ x 5.5′ deck structure that serves as the porch entrance to a storage shed. The surface of the deck is pressure treated 2×8s sawn to fit between the front railing and a ledger just below the siding on the shed. As you can see in the picture, the 15-year old surface wasn’t subject to a lot of TLC and started to rot. It’s too hard to tell now whether it was ever sealed after first being laid.
Underneath the surface wood is a support structure built of 4×4s. We expected to find these support joists rotted out as well. Fortunately, after removing the wood we found that the majority of the structural wood was in good shape. Where there was minor issues it did not appear to be active rotting. We elected not to replace the existing structure due to time and cost constraints. Instead, we sistered up one new pressure treated 2×4 to the 4×4 closest to the shed to give us a wider area to fasten the new decking surface. Then, we laid new pressure treated wood on top of all the old joists.
All in all, we completed this job in about 6 hours on a Saturday. Below are the relatively simple steps we followed to resurface the deck that will work for most decking surfaces. Of course, each job is unique. On some decks, it is easier to lay all the wood and then mark and cut the edge with a circular saw. In our case, a raised railing required the wood to be cut before it was laid.
Steps to Resurface a Deck
If the wood was nailed down, use a pry bar and hammer to pull up the existing wood. If the wood was screwed down, use a drill driver instead to unfasten the wood from the substructure.- Purchase dimensional lumber in lengths that minimize waste. In our case, each board needed to be 5′8, so 2×12s made the most sense, yielding only 8 inches of waste on each board.
- Cut and lay the new boards over the existing structure. Fasten the boards down with nails or screws. We chose Phillips 3″ exterior grade decking screws (available at Home Depot). If you’re doing a deck larger than about 200 square feet, you should consider a collated screwgun as an alternative to a traditional drill-driver.
- To get the last board to fit, we had to rip-cut the 2×8 down to 6.26″ To do this, we measured and drew a line on the board from end to end, then used the laser-sighted circular saw to carefully rip the board. The result was a perfect fit.
Tools / Materials We Used to Resurface the Deck
Each of the tools we used can be purchased on Amazon with free shipping over $25 total purchase (and no sales tax in most places). The tools required are:
- Standard Claw Hammer
- 15″ Pry Bar
- Drill Driver (We used a 1/2 milwaukee electric drill)
- 7.25″ Laser-sighted Circular Saw
- 35′ Stanley Tape Measure
Materials:
- 16 pieces 2×8x12 pressure treated lumber
- 1 Box 500 Phillips 3″ Exterior Screws
Dimensional Lumber vs. Decking Boards
For this resurfacing job we elected to use traditional 2-by dimensional lumber (2×8s to be specific). An alternative to laying dimensional lumber would have been to use thinner decking boards available at lumber yards everywhere. Traditional dimensional lumber is 1.5 inches thick (despite the 2-by designation). Decking boards are 1.06 inches thick. The substructure of this deck had a 33″ span between two of the 4×4s. Even traditional 2×8s had more spring than we would have preferred, but laying decking boards would have been a non-starter. They would have bowed too much under these conditions.
What do you think? Have you resurfaced your deck? Is your deck in need of measures beyond simple stain and seal?
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October 29th, 2008 1:53 pm
Fred,
Normal decking, 5/4 material is 1″ thick. There are lots of decks that are done with 2x material in order to use fewer joists like your situation. However, 33″ is far more than most people would use. Typically, 24″ spacing is the max.
October 29th, 2008 6:54 pm
Todd,
Thanks for the correction. I mistakenly thought decking boards were 6/4 and finished to 1.25. They are, in fact, 5/4, which is finished to 1-1/16″ (1.06). Post is corrected. You are right about the span distance being too long (I mentioned the excessive bounce in the post), but its ground level and generally never has weight on it, so I’m not worried and we didn’t want to spend the effort adding a beam.
On long spanning distances… the B&B we stayed at had a neat ceiling setup. They had a decorative ceiling with structural 4×8s supporting 1.5″ tongue and groove pine. The 4×8s were spaced at at least 42″ on center. On top of the 1.5″ tongue and groove was another 3/4″ ply.
October 29th, 2008 7:22 pm
Lot’s of really old homes, 1800’s era have that type of floor detail. The funny thing is the floor boards really never were a problem, it was the 4×6′, 4×8’s, etc that are really inefficient joists.
As usual great post Fred. 5/4 decking is certainly the industry standard for porches and decks.
November 2nd, 2008 7:31 pm
That deck looks great!
November 2nd, 2008 8:52 pm
Sandy - Thanks! It was a lot of work for one day, but a lot of fun. The owner is pleased with the work (which she got for free!)