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We installed a deck in July for a client using premium pressure treated 5/4 decking butted tightly. The boards now have a 1/2″ gap which is excessive. How best to fix? The boards are screwed down. Do you think we can unscrew, move the boards closer (perhaps leaving 1/8″ gap) and re- screw and end up with a good look? By the way, the deck is curved (of course, it isn’t the nice square deck to which this would happen!) with the widest point at the center. So, we’d have to move the boards towards the outside and add new boards in center. Which, will gap and we’ll have to do it again. The customer is dissatisfied – which is valid. All I can attribute it to is wood that was wetter than usual and a summer that is hotter and dryer than usual (by the way – the deck is in full sun). Does anyone have a better solution?
Nancy Moore, The Porch Company
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Hi Nancy,
Are you saying your butt crack is too wide or the longitudinal spacing is too wide?
How many boards? How many boards did you use in each affected run? How long is each run? Do you have a pattern in your runs or are the joints staggered?
You could borrow already seasoned wood from another portion of the deck, try to establish a pattern of joints and cut out sections (not too short) and replace with a piece of the material you removed from the other portion of the deck.
I would either butt them tightly or scarf cut them which will help hide any future movement/shrinkage.
Treat this as a jigsaw puzzle, borrowing from another section of the deck. The pieces you cut out can be reused in other cutouts if you plan your cuts carefully.
Finally, use new wood in that one portion of the deck you used for spare parts and if you don't want to do it over again, store and sticker your new wood so it has a chance to dry before use and also scarf cut to hide movement when you do install it. Draw out or postpone the repairs so the new wood has a chance to preshrink.
But, and there is always a butt, once you get your crack problem fixed, if you use the above idea, the customer might complain about the extra screw holes if you can't make your repairs lining up the existing holes with the joists.
Please post back what you finally did for a fix. There will be others on this forum who also appreciate whatever ideas work.
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There is no problem with the pattern. It is a strsight run. I think I must re-use the same screw holes or it would be unsightly. The question is, what are the odds I'll be able to unscrew and rescrew the boards and have them screw tightly and look good. In other words, am I going to all this effort only to have the customer still be dissapointed? It worries me to try and sticker and dry PT lumber - I think the odds of most of it moving so much it is only good for trash are very high.
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This is why I only use TREX. If the customer claims that they cannot afford the extra cost then they probably cannot afford to build a deck in the first place. It's not that much more expensive when you consider the entire cost of building a deck.
*From this distance cannot predict results with unscrewing boards. Rescrewing may be a more of a problem since you will probably need to drive the screws in a little more the second time. Two thoughts. Did you use #8-3" screws or #10-3-1/2"? If #8, the #10's may give a little room to work with. Also can you flip boards over? This would give you a clean screw surface on top. A final, costly fix, is countersinking the screws and plugging them. Ouch!
*Nancy- I don't see an answer to Ralph's question- butt joints are open or spacing between boards is excessive?Bad news you gotta fix it- good news it's screwed down. I think you are saying the space between boards is too great- back the screws out and relay- same holes should work fine.Butt joints I would Chamfer so that as you drive replacement board tight the joint tightens.ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS get finish lumber acclimated before installing- that's for indoors and out.
*You might have some tear out around those screws if they're countersunk any. Maybe check that out before you come up with your final plan. I might leave more like a 1/4" gap if you re-lay. The old stuff might expand a little when it picks up moisture. Did you seal it up/stain it yet? Best of luck, hope there was a little fudge factor built in the original price.
*Not that this will help, but I don't gap PT decking. I lay them snug to each other, and the drainage gaps appear as it dries. Jeff
*she already said she did that mano- go get another tattoo...
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The gaps I'm seeing are side to side - not at the end joints. Yes, we router the end joint so there is no trip points when the boards go end to end. Yes, we lay the boards together leaving no gap. Yes, we expect the boards to gap as the lumber shrinks but I have never seen it gap 1/2" before. We have built a couple of decks before (been in business for 9 years). No, we don't "season" PT lumber because if it's not nailed down, the stuff twists so badly it's not even good for stickering material! My question is, will I have a better deck if I unscrew, move and re-screw or will it be worse?
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Well, it's got to come off one way or another, right? Nothing to lose trying... Did you perhaps use a different sealer than on more successful decks?
Is your main worry how the screws will back out? If so, i made a bar of metal about 8" long with a hole in it the size of the screw heads i needed to remove when i goofed up my deck. Centered the hole over the screw head and stood on the sides of the bar to hold the wood fibers down as i slowly backed the screws out. Not really all that slow a process, except for a few broken heads requiring prybar/hack(!)saw. Moving the boards to the outside sounds reasonable and conservative--you'll just have to cut the curve again, a bit of a pain if it's inside a fascia board, tho' you don't say. A new board added in the middle will look just like the others before long, since it's only been 2 months or so since you laid them; you'll have to plan spacing to be sure you're able to get middle board(s)in with a full width. I wish you understanding homeowners!
*All previuos posts aside, my first impression is that the boards were sopping wet when they were layed. Half an inch is a LOT, where boards were tightly butted. Secondly, I would suspect that the boards were not butted tightly together and were wet.Using PT lumber assumes this expansion and contraction thing and that's all there is to it. Customers should be made aware of that. Repairing this mess is gonna be a timely and probably expensive process.Pete Draganic
*Now that the question - butt gap or longitudinal gap has been answered - ....If the screws can be backed out without excessive tearing and I think it is possible, given that the wood is still probably slightly wet, the fibers should bend rather than tear. Go ahead, remove the screws, push the boards together and rescrew through the same holes. You'll bite new wood on the joists. I would push toward edges of the deck, adding new lumber in the middle. Dry lumber. (A drawing would have helped). Now you can either gap or not, depending on whether you feel there is still some shrinkage left to go.Not to appear confrontational but you must have some pretty awful wood in your area if you can't find some that can be stored and dried.
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We installed a deck in July for a client using premium pressure treated 5/4 decking butted tightly. The boards now have a 1/2" gap which is excessive. How best to fix? The boards are screwed down. Do you think we can unscrew, move the boards closer (perhaps leaving 1/8" gap) and re- screw and end up with a good look? By the way, the deck is curved (of course, it isn't the nice square deck to which this would happen!) with the widest point at the center. So, we'd have to move the boards towards the outside and add new boards in center. Which, will gap and we'll have to do it again. The customer is dissatisfied - which is valid. All I can attribute it to is wood that was wetter than usual and a summer that is hotter and dryer than usual (by the way - the deck is in full sun). Does anyone have a better solution?
Nancy Moore, The Porch Company