When the owner called me to have a look at the deck, he talked about a "small project." The deck I found had three different parts. The first, was a raised area constructed mainly from a pine understructure which had rotted in many places and was covered in two layers of plywood which itself was covered in astro-turf. The lower area was a redwood deck but had been painted. The substructure, consisting of 4" x 6" full sized pine beams was severly rotted in places and in addition, the beams were four feet apart, resulting in a 'bouncing' of the boards which eventually had ripped the nails out and lifted. A third section was lower still and had been built at a later date. This had a concrete pad underneath it which carried the hot tub.

After discussing options with the owners, we agreed to replace the entire deck area with new redwood and to renew the structural timber as we went and where necessary. We would however raise the lowest deck level and also deck the upper level, which originally had a plywood decking with redwood planks. So the first step was tearing off the existing covering. The hot tub, which weighed 800 lbs when empty was moved manually with a crew of six as a mechanical removal was not possible, due to the proximity of the swimming pool.

After rebuilding the main structural members, treating the few existing beams that we kept, with an epoxy based restorer and adding new beams using pressure treated 4"x6" lumber we turned to the raised deck. We removed the stairs because the stringers were cracked and removed the existing 2"x6" joists which were in poor shape. We replaced these using the best 2"x6" boards from the old deck. They were very straight and, on edge, still extremely strong, thereby saving the owners some money.

It was now time to start laying down the deck planks. We used self-tapping, self-counter-sinking 3-1/2" screws and going up to a length of 4-1/2" screws on the older timbers to ensure that we reached decent material. The handrail at the back was built in a standard manner and is up to code. The drop at the front is such that a handrail could be avoided altogether, but in the interests of safety, we built a lightweight barrier using 2"x4" redwood on edge and tensioned wires. This allowed for a continuing transparency between the pool, the hot tub and the raised deck, but was enough to prevent anyone falling off the edge.

The owners were so thrilled with the result that they paid us an added bonus! That's the kind of work we like.