The deck on the back of my house is a pretty nice, large deck. But unfortunately it’s been rotting through pretty bad, and it’s progressed to the point it’s fairly unsafe to be on, so it’s time to do something about it.
Here’s what we’re starting with:
There’s also several things about this deck I don’t love. I don’t love the lattice railing around it, I dislike the grill placement, and while the pictures don’t show it, the deck is a couple inches lower than it needs to be, resulting in an awkwardly long step down from the door.
So let’s get a quick draft of what we want the new deck to look like:
The lattice railing is replaced with a large wrap-around step down around 2 sides of the deck. A back railing/wall helps to obscure the view of the house’s air conditioning condenser, and the new deck-space created on the “bump out” in front of the AC unit will serve as a good spot for the grill.
Additionally, to reduce yardwork, I plan to line the ground with an edged gravel, and would like to extend the gravel to the right side of the deck (opposite the side the railing is on) to serve as a nice spot for a small fire pit.
But before any of that can happen… destruction:
The railings come down first, after that I can run my saw down the top boards and use a reciprocating saw to cut the joists, making for somewhat manageable chunks to toss over the fence.
Surprisingly the one bit of deck that was still in decent shape was the area immediately outside the door, so I was able to leave it temporarily as a landing for myself and the dog:
Getting all the deck out of the way now revealed why the original deck had rotted so bad. A significant amount of dirt, mud and clay had been shoveled halfway up the joists:
To be perfectly honest, I have no idea why this much dirt was piled underneath the deck. I imagine it may have been to provide a grade for water to run off? But I am not sure. It was definitely an intentional decision by someone though, the dirt had to have been placed there after the joists were in place, the mud was shoveled up to meet it.
It did result in an insanely cool amount of fungus mycelium showing up on several of the joists. While cool it also explains the rotting, the wood doesn’t appear to have been pressure treated to begin with, and being in contact with ground was an absolute feast for the fungus.
My plan is to excavate out a good chunk of the dirt and try to re-level the area. There does need to be a grade away from the house for water runoff, I’ll ensure it’s consistent with the grade of the rest of the house, and I plan to place down a weed/vapor barrier and gravel layer as well to help water drainage and runoff.