If you are one of the lucky people that have an outdoor deck area added to your home, then you can appreciate and understand that it is a beautiful luxury to have. You have space that you can enjoy and spend with your family and friends. It’s a space that you can go outside and enjoy the fresh air in a comfortable place. To help keep this luxury lasting a long time, you need to make sure it stays updated and maintained, so it can keep giving you pleasure for many years to come. Here are some simple, effective ways that you can maintain and prevent damage to your home deck. Make sure that you use the right tools in doing these tips. Tools like impact driver guide Makita will allow you to do the process right and have a really good outcome.
Beware of rot
When inspecting your outdoor deck and you discover rot or an infestation in one piece of wood, there is a good chance that there are some nearby boards that are affected as well. Before you attempt to make any repairs, make sure to inspect every support post, joist, and deck board for damage.
Prevent decay
To help minimize any further decay to your deck, inspect every joist, post, and all boards that may have rot. You will need to dig out the rot and then let it dry. Next you should brush on two to three coats of deck preservative to prevent any further rot from happening.
Don’t cover
One of the worse things you can do to the wood of your deck is to cover the ends of the deck boards with covering or trims. This is a perfect invite for rot and insects. The reason is because the coverings will prevent moisture from evaporating from the end grain of the wood causing them to become damaged.
Prevent warping
To help discourage warping of the wood, lay new boards bark side up. By doing this the semicircles of the wood grain on the ends of the boards will curve downward preventing any warping and causing damage to your deck.
Nail know-how
A simple way to grab a stubborn nail out of wood boards is to gouge around it with a wood chisel, and do this until the head is exposed, it will then be easy to pull out. Also you will want to pull out any popped nails in the deck boards, and then you can secure the boards with sixteen diameter nails. An even better way is to use three inch decking screws, these are easier to remove. If you are nailing, you can insert the new nails into the old holes already made, making sure to drive them in at an angle so they bite into the fresh joist wood that is below.
