Replies

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   Guest_ | Jun 27, 1999 08:00am | #1

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   Of course you can. But you will not be happy in a year or two. Better to wait until you have the cash and do it right.

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   Guest_ | Jun 27, 1999 08:26am | #2

   *Steve,Sure, you can use anything you can afford for the deck now. But use pressure treated for the underpinning. You can always change out the deck boards later.Ed. Williams

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   Guest_ | Jun 27, 1999 08:30am | #3

   *Here in VA, Douglas Fir is a fairly expensive material, around the same as cedar and cheaper than redwood. Inexpensive decks here are constructed with treated SYP. We sometimes use fir for exterior trim, but special care must be taken in painting it or it will rot and return to the earth in 5 or 6 yrs. Maybe wait untill you can afford a more suitable material for a deck.

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   Guest_ | Jun 27, 1999 09:29am | #4

   *Well, kid you not, but I would have agreed with the above posts. Except about 1993, I built a deck for a friend of a friend out of DF. Posts--set on pierblocks--were PT, everything else was untreated. There's still life left in her, boys.Money was tight, so they asked me to do on the cheap. Since I wasn't going to cut my labor, it had to come out of the materials. I told them to seal, seal, seal the wood and then paint, paint, paint. The friend who turned me on to the job just told me a few months ago that the folks really like their deck, use it all the time.The matter of the fact is with proper treatment/maintenance, a wood deck could last for at least a decade. The flip side is, do you want to wait until you can use superior materials? What other projects are waiting?Climate, I suspect, has alot to do with it. This deck is in central CA about a mile from the big salt. We have extended periods of marine layer induced fog along with 15-20 kts wind.

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   Guest_ | Jun 27, 1999 09:54am | #5

   *steve, I saw a show on TV one time that went to some Govt. testing site...(Dept. of interior, Forestry service...I don't recall?) But anyway, they had built dozens of decks out of lots of material, and using all different fastening and sealing methods. I don't know how to find that info (wish I was paying better attention) but it must be out there. It was our tax dollars at work maybe you can find it and make use of it.And like Rich, I've seen decks made of regular 2x and such last a long time. I doubt there is any real savings since the maintenence is much higher, but I don't particuliarly like PT much anyway.Good luck,Richard

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   Guest_ | Jun 27, 1999 11:07am | #6

   *I was wondering about this too -- a deck uses a whole lot more solid wood than a house. Could he cheaply build a waterproof deck from sealed plywood, sloped to drain? Rip it out later and put in nicer decking? I know it sounds improbable, but what if it is built more like a roof than a deck?

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   Guest_ | Jun 28, 1999 01:15am | #8

   *Andrew, plywood for decks? Hmmm...I think it would have to be highly treated and maintained to last for than one or two winters--even in temperate CA. I know because I built a deck for my wife's potting shed. I knew I wouldn't complete the structure for awhile, so I saturated with Thompson's and then painted with exterior latex. Ended up tearing out the ply.

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   steve_stacker | Jun 28, 1999 01:15am | #7

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   I am buying a home in the mountans that needs a deck real bad but I will be low on cash. Can you use a less expensive type of material to deck with. Any ideas.