Our Next Project: A small pressure treated deck in Rochester Hills MI

Here is what have been building the last couple of days. A 7x20 treated pine deck with 1 foot cut corners, and 2 steps. We also built a small privacy fence at the end of the deck

Here is the design

Here is what it came out like

Privacy fence,

Treated pine 4x4 posts, 2x4 rails, 2x2 top section with cedar tongue and groove solid panels,

Next we are going to Auburn Hills to build a Correct Deck CX deck

What we did today... Vinyl Pergola

Today we built a vinyl pergola kit from Backyard America,

The model is called "The Aspen" and it's main feature: is it's curved rafters.

We built it for a display / give away for Lumber Jack Building Center in Algonac MI. They are going to give it away for there 45 anniversary of being in business.

We augered 8" x 42" holes into the ground to bury 4x4s to support the pergola posts.

The kits are pretty easy to install, it took us about 6 hours to build, with the shade screens

Shade screens, They slide into a vinyl H-channel

The pergola kits look nice with a landscape block retaining wall built up around the base of the posts. You can also use round columns for the main posts. There is also options of staight rafters, Fabric awnings attached to the pergola, and shade blinds, and privacy fences

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Here are a few pictures of the options for the pergolas from Backyard America

Round Columns with straight rafters

Drop down fabric blinds Fabric shade awnings attached to the pergola

Custom Pergolas

Thank You

We are off to Rochester Hills to build a small pressure treated pine deck

Here is some final pictures from this job. To review, we were only going to replace the railings on this job. But once we tore out the railings and fascia we noticed the rot damage to the deck boards. So we ended up replacing all the decking and re-building all the steps.

The deck boards are 2x6 cedar. The railing posts are 4x4 treated pine and rails are 2x4 treated pine with the classic deckorators metal balusters. We capped the top rail with a cedar 2x6 and we routered the 2x6 top cap

Center seam board

Thank You... Coming up we have a Vinyl Pergola to build. A small treated pine deck, and another Correct Deck Cx composite job to do... Look out for some updates

A few thoughts on deck building, and our next project in Rochester Hills MI

Our next project is a re-cover and new railings on a multi-level deck in Rochester Hills MI

When we get into tearing apart an old deck it gives us alot of good insight of deck construction failures or problem areas. One area I see alot of problems from is when two pieces of wood are sandwiched or sistered together and water can run in-between the two pieces of wood.

On this deck we are working on was a old cedar deck with a treated pine frame. To cover the treated frame they used a single 1x fascia board this typical in cedar and composite/pvc deck building, but is a sure problem area down the road. This deck is about 15 to 20 years old and it is easy to see why you do not do this. The gap between the fascia and the end grain of the deck boards created a perfect place for debris and water to build up and promote rot.

Fascia Boards: Stepped and single fascia boards where they cover the rim joist of a deck. In the picture below, we started by taking off the railings and fascia boards. If you notice the fascia board that is removed from the angled portion of this deck and you can see where we have not removed the fascia board yet. The fascia is covering the end grains of the deck boards and the treated frame. But what it is really doing is creating a space for water and debris to collect and rot away at the end grains of the deck boards and eventually the fascia.

You can see the treated pine frame is not rotted just the ends of the deck boards the fasia is rotted too. Another problem that results from this is carpenter ants and carpenter bees. They seem to feed off of the rotted area, we had to remove a couple of large nests from this deck

This is easally prevent by running a border board around the outside of the deck or running the ends of the deck boards over the rim joist. We prefer the border board method because it hides the end grains of the deck boards. It does require more framing for the border picture frame but it is also a nice design feature. See in the picture below how this works

On this deck we have a 2 tiered fascia covering the outside rim joist. But notice the border board hides the end grain of the deck boards and covers the sandwiched or sistered 2 tiered fascia no water or debris can get into the sanwiched area

From above the view of a picture frame border

Border board on a composite deck where it really sets a nice design feature