Building a Deck: Assessment

Video Transcript

"We're underneath the old deck here that needs to come down. The beans are checked here a little bit and they can really twist on you, these big long beans can get a really bad twist in them. They can rot out, there's some rotting up here, and it's pretty bad, clear back about three feet, and they just - they get splits. The two by sixes will get splits in them. They'll get rot underneath the joints of the two by sixes here, and when that happens, you just need to take that board out and taking that board out means you have to take off all these boards and that's what we're going to do. Okay, this is a four by six upright support for the deck, it's sitting down on the concrete, it contacts with moisture and everything and it'll suck it right up in the wood and rot out. You need to have a metal, galvanized metal bracket that raises this up off the ground about an inch or so. And this is where the old bracket was and it's just rusted and gone. Again this is the old deck here that needs to come up and replaced. The top rail is just rotted and falling apart, the spindles are just garbage, so to demo this we usually just take a saw and just cut off the four by fours, and you can just push that over and then that's gone. On your decking it's all just eighteen or twenty years old, that's about what redwood gets, and usually on your joints where the wood comes together is where we will get some rotting on your joints underneath there. Okay, this is one of the joints where the redwood butts up to each other, and this is where you get your moisture sucking into the ends of the boards, and that's usually the worst spot on the deck, and then underneath this can leak onto the joints and get about an half an inch softness underneath there too. Okay, to keep your redwood good instead of leeching this moisture in, you should treat the ends of your two by sixes first before you ever butt them up, you could, I take and coat the full two by six board on every side before I install them. And that's just a good way to keep the moisture out so you don't end up with rotten boards. Okay, this is a joint on the handrail up on the top here, this is what happens when they get old and you put about ten different screws and nails in here, it weakens up the wood and it ... it just makes it deteriorate all the more when you put more nails and screws in there."