A Weather-Proof Deck

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Then, support your deck better than indicated in many plans. I've been criticized for "overbuilding"—recommending more or larger timbers or fittings than standard practice and plans indicate. But standard practice presupposes professional carpenters with the experience to avoid major errors, and standard plans assume a builder who knows how to eval uate and install boards and timbers, nails and bolts. I'm not a pro and you aren't either and I think it's better to overbuild than risk failure.

First, it never hurts to overbuild your deck's weakest link: the piers—a combination of rock or concrete footing and wooden posts that support it out in front. If a plan specifies spindly little 4" square wood piers, I use 6" posts; if 6" is specified, I use 8" posts. Not only are the larger sizes sturdier, they look better—giving a deck (especially a high one) a more substantial look. (Hint: take a photo or draw an "elevation"—a scale drawing—of your house facade. Sketch in a deck to scale using several post sizes. I bet you'll like the larger widths better. And the price difference isn't all that great.)

Then, don't let the lumberyard stockpicker choose your posts. You don't need many, so select your own. The sidebars give general guidelines for choosing lumber. For posts, be especially picky. Choose posts with flat and even sides and a straight grain—no warps or major twists. No large knots, splits, and holes to admit rot, either. Pick long posts and split them if (as is common) the 8-footers all contain sapwood—that won't accept pressure treatment, and so rots fastest.

Install posts atop concrete or mortared-rock footings to keep them away from soilborne water and wood-rot organisms. If you bury even top-rated .60 PT in the soil, you can cut its useful life by half. Don't just set the posts flat on the concrete either. Buy metal post-base fittings that anchor into the footing and raise the post to keep water from entering the vulnerable cut end.

Seal those cut ends (both top and bottom) of all vertical posts ...with multiple coats of a wood-penetrating preservative and a waterproofer. Indeed, it doesn't hurt to soak the posts in a bucket full of a fluid sealant for several weeks to let it soak into the wood. Be sure to wrap the top of the bucket and protruding posts with plastic sheeting to prevent wasteful evaporation.

Before Cuprinol and other modern wood preservatives came along, old-time farmers would soak ground beams and fence posts for a year in a pit filled with rock-salt/saltpeter brine. Then they would dry the saturated timbers and burn the surface of ground-contact portions to seal the wood behind a bug- and fungus-repelling coating of char.

A soaking or coat of pine tar or liquid creosote also produced timbers that would hold up for decades. Creosote has been found to be a topical carcinogen and has been withdrawn from the consumer market by the EPA, but pine tar is sold in bulk as horse liniment and will dissolve in turpentine to make a wood-soaking bath.

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