Almost every deck call we get starts with the boards, because the boards are what you can see. They are grey, they are splintering, one of them flexes when you walk over it, and the rail wobbles when you lean on it. All of that is real, and none of it actually tells you what the deck needs. The answer is under your feet, and the first thing we do is get down there with a screwdriver.
The frame is what decides it. A deck is posts carrying beams, beams carrying joists, and joists carrying the boards you walk on. The boards are the cheapest part and the easiest to replace. If the posts, beams and joists are sound, you can pull every board and rail off, put new ones down, and have what is effectively a new deck for a fraction of the cost of building one. If the structure has gone, new boards are money spent on top of a problem.
The test is simple and you can do it yourself. Take a screwdriver and push it into the posts at ground level, into the beam ends, and into the joists where they sit on the beam. Sound timber resists — you have to lean on it. Rotten timber takes the blade like styrofoam. Ground level on the posts is where it almost always starts, because that is where water sits and where the timber wicks moisture up out of the soil.
Four more things push a deck from repair into rebuild. Posts that move when you push the rail hard. Beams or joists that are cracked through rather than just checked on the surface. Joist hangers or fasteners that have rusted to the point where you can see through them — very common on older decks built with the wrong nails. And a ledger board, where the deck meets the house, that was never flashed properly, which quietly rots the house wall as well as the deck.
If the frame passes, what you actually need is a re-deck. We pull the old boards and rails, replace any single joist that has gone while everything is open and accessible, then lay new decking and build new rails. Pressure-treated timber is the cheaper route and looks right on an older house. Composite costs more up front and never needs staining again, which is worth thinking about on a deck that sits under trees and stays damp.
If it fails, it comes out. That sounds worse than it is: a deck of the same size, built new from proper footings with the right hardware and flashed correctly at the house, will outlast the one it replaced by decades. What you should not do is put new boards on a soft frame, because in three years you will be paying to take the new boards off again.
One last thing worth saying plainly: a deck holds people up, usually more of them than usual, usually all standing in the same place. It is not a part of the house to guess about. We check the frame on every deck we quote, and we tell you which of the two jobs you are looking at before you have spent anything.
Jireh Painting and Remodeling builds and rebuilds decks across Habersham, Rabun, Stephens, Hall, White, Banks, Towns and Franklin counties, and Oconee County, South Carolina. Free written quotes — call (678) 365-7004.