Low sloped roof decks, composite pavers and cable rail.

Hello again ...

Today we are going to go over a project we did back in March for a home builder out on Harsens Island Michigan. This house is being built right on the middle channel of the St. Clair river where the ocean freighters cut through to get to lake Huron, it is also the border to Canada / Walpole island.

The deck was built by the house framers, and had a EPDM rubber roof applied before we arrived to complete the decking, railings, and fascia. The home actually had three deck areas where we worked.

Originally they were going to use 2x4 sleepers and PVC decking on the deck.

 The deck is sloped about 1" of fall for every 4' to allow the water to run off and to keep the space under the deck dry where they planned on doing a screened porch.

We recommend to the builder to use the Azek pavers. This is the very use they were attended for and in my opinion is the best option for a flat or low sloped roof deck.

The pavers are installed over a rain screen mat that allows the water to flow underneath the pavers. Once the mat is installed you layout out the grids, and then install the pavers.

 Nothing is attached to the deck so there is no worry for leaks because of having to attach sleepers. Also all the products are made from plastic or composite so they are light weight in comparison to decking with sleepers.



We started the project laying out the rain mat, then installing the grids, and then the pavers.

The install is really easy and goes really fast we installed this 600 square foot deck in a day with two guys. The real works begins at the edges of the deck.

You have to plan the grid layout to fit the paver layout with the biggest concern being how to finish off the edges of the deck.

The builder keep the bottom course of the stone veneer out until after the deck was finished. Then they will finish off the stone edge around the house because of the inconsistency of the stone veneer that would be hard to match up with the Azek pavers.

Here in the picture above you can see our progress after day 1 we have all the pavers installed except for around the outer rim of the deck. That is when the work begins.






Our next step was to install the rail posts for the railings of the deck since the deck was 10' above ground level the deck needed railings. The homeowner choose cable rail in fill with a synthetic rail.

The rail posts were installed inside of the deck rim and attached with 3) Thrulok bolts and one DTT2Z bracket. Then we had to flash around each post with EPDM flashing boots that were glued down.

Sorry I cannot find any pictures of the flashing install on the rail posts. Here in the picture on the left we have the Timber Tech Express post sleeves and top rail installed. We are working on installing the bull-nose border paver course.

We decided on this project to overlap the border course a few inches past the deck rim so we could hid where the rubber roof will run into the gutter mounted right under the border course.

 That will do it it for today ... I will finish this project off in the next blog post, and go over the cable rail install. Thanks for reading !  Michigan deck builders.