On my YouTube channel there's a video of the basic build process of my composite deck
There are a few questions that have been asked in the YouTube comments, here I’ll try and answer them as best I can.
Here's what I have so far:-
Please note, I'm not affiliated or connected to Envirobuild in any way, I just purchased the materials from them and as you'll see I didn't fully go with their install methods.
If you want to take a look at the video to see what I'm on about, here's the link:-
How much did it cost?
Ok then, let's clarify a couple of things first:
What I'm showing here is the cost of the materials. It doesn't include the preparation of the ground ready for the decking to sit on top.
It also doesn't include the cost of labour (mine or anyone else's).
However, I'll add some more information on that lower down.
Here you can see the actual quote for the materials, it's from August 2019 but you can compare prices on the Envirobuild website today. The materials needed are calculated by Envirobuild for you (if you want) and I took advantage of that offer. I also calculated it for myself and came out pretty much the same so I was happy that it was right. However, take a look further down because I made a mistake!!!
So that represented the materials I needed to build the deck in the size and pattern I wanted, on a flat stable surface. Accordingly, if you are building a deck on a flat prepared, stable surface (maybe a concrete slab or something) then it's all you need.
The only problem for me was that my surface is not flat.........
The Envirobuild calculation service assumes you have all the base prep in hand (and to be fair to them why wouldn't they?)
In my case, I was happy enough that the base was perfectly stable and capable of supporting the deck. I had a lot of confidence in it because I'd previously removed a wooden deck twice the size that I built 20 years ago on the same base. Here's a couple of pics of parts of it.
But the surface underneath was far from flat and even.
Stable and capable of support yes, flat no.
So then I had to order a load of adjustable pedestals to cope with the uneven ground. They do this very well, they're very good but it was more cost as shown here.
Once again, to be fair to Envirobuild, I returned most of the original Mesa Adjustable Supports that were in the first order and they credited them (they were still in the box)
So the total cost for materials came to around £2700
Then you need to consider the base. If you only have mud or soil you'll need some form of compacted base.
Then you need to add labour or value your own labour.
From memory I'd say it took me about 5 - 6 days all in. Bear in mind I don't do this every day and it was my first experience with the composite stuff. But I have built decks before so the setting out and actual construction wasn't a particularly new thing. Biggest time taken was setting out the adjustable supports because of the ground level issues so yes if I did it again I'd rip out the base and lay down a proper sub-base
To learn about sub bases, take a look at the Paving Expert site here
Check out Envirobuild here
To make it clear, I have no links or affiliation to Envirobuild. I wasn't sponsored or supported in any way for the video or this article.
What’s it been like for wear?
Something that we were very aware of before I built it is that whatever fancy name you give it, in layman’s terms it‘s plastic decking. So yes, we were concerned it would scratch, fade, discolour etc. At the time of adding this edit, it’s been down about 10 months and it still looks great. As I’ve mentioned here and there it does expand and contract quite a bit but it seems to always go back to it’s original shape / positioning. In terms of abrasion resistance or underfoot wear, in fairness it’s not in what you might call a high traffic area. There’s only the two of us in the house, no kids with footballs, bikes, skates whatever. We’ve tramped across it in muddy boots before the lawn was put down and the guys who installed the lawn did the same (we’ve got no complaints about this, we told them they could). I took a good look at it today and I can’t find any marking or problems with it. We used it most of last summer with two garden chairs on it (the white ones in the video, they have rubber feet). Before it we had softwood timber decking down for 20+ years and in fairness that still looked ok (but old) when we took it up. We now have another softwood timber deck at the bottom of the garden (sounds very grand but in reality about 10 feet away...) so I can compare the two as time goes by.
Overall I have absolutely no complaints about how it‘s bearing up, but as said above we don’t abuse it. My guess is that if I was in the habit of dragging a metal barbecue or fire pit across it, or maybe something like heavy furniture then it would mark or scratch and I suspect that once it is badly marked it will be more obvious than an equivalent mark in wood. I have a couple of spare pieces kicking around so at some point I’ll scrape them about a bit and put the resulting pictures on here.
You’ve bridged the DPC!!
I had a comment on YouTube from a surveyor telling me that I’d bridged the DPC.
First up to state that I believe that to the letter of the relevant standard, his point is almost certainly correct. I am not arguing his point and I asked him if he could help by providing some information on best practice. He hasn’t.
I’ve had a look to see what information I can find and the answer is, not much. There’s plenty of websites dealing with decking installs and many of them show a similar “internal floor level” install approach. The only thing really interesting I found was an article about threshold drainage on the Paving Expert site.
On there it talks about slot drains in use at door thresholds. And the slot in the drain looks to be around 5mm across - about the same gap as you might have between deck boards. So in my view, a deck having lots of 5mm slots in it provides a lot of drainage.
As I pointed out to the gentleman, before the composite deck there was a wooden deck in exactly the same place for over 20 years, there’s been no deterioration of the mortar joints and no evidence of water ingress. However, that doesn’t make it right and it definitely doesn’t make it something I’d suggest as acceptable to anybody else.
And there’s my problem. Normally I try to research everything I put on here or on YouTube to make sure that if anyone follows my methods they are working safely and within any relevant standards or laws. In this instance I can’t so if you read this and you have any information or links that can be published without copyright issues I’d love to repost it here to help people.
How do you get the board spacings?
If you buy the hold down clips that go with the deck boards, the spacing is set by them but also you get a little spacer block which has spacings (from memory) of 4mm, 5mm & 6mm. Sorry, I don't have any pics.
How did you fix the picture frame border?
There's been a couple of questions on this so I'll see if I can answer.
First question is, how did I fix it. The bullnose board I used has a special profile
In this fairly bad sketch you can see that it only has a slot in one edge but it then has a slot concealed underneath that can be held down with metal clips and screws (also shown)
It is possible to use the same clips on the standard deck board and they'd be partly concealed but we particularly wanted the bullnose edging.
The clips have to be fitted first and the boards are then slotted on top after which the rear plastic clips cab be fitted.
All the clips and screws came as a part of my order because I asked Envirobuild to quote the full project as noted above. If I had ordered the boards as separate items I would have also had to order the clips separately.
Second question relates to the fact that I fitted some support pieces to go under the edge of the picture frame boards. If you look at the picture below closely (up by the battery drill), you can see there are actually two joists running parallel. Each of these then had supports beneath and this is what created the problem
The initial build was as shown below. The problem we had with it is that you could see the bases of the supports and we weren't happy about that.
Joists are shown in blue, supports in yellow, deck boards in green, bullnose picture frame in brown. And you can see the edge of the yellow supports exposed outside the deck area. Notice the key things that are needed though:
Support for each end of each board.
Support for both the front and back edge of the picture frame
Support for the joists that are supporting the boards (I've only shown the supports under the joists in question, in real life there were supports under all joists)
So I moved the picture frame outward in relation to the frame and supported it differently as shown in the below picture
Now you can see I've added supports between the two joists to support the rear edge of the picture frame and I've added supports to the outer side of the joist to support the front edge of the picture frame. And the bases are now concealed
I'd like to be very clear here in that this does not comply with the Envirobuild fitting instructions and it's by no means a guide or instruction on how anybody else should do it. However, in our installation which is relatively low traffic low use, it performs fine.
I'm reasonably confident that If I'd gone back to Envirobuild with my problem they'd have likely given me a solution that would have complied with their guidelines but this was a Saturday afternoon and I needed to get it finished that weekend so I found my own method and it works for my install.
More information on how the bullnose picture framing fits can be found in the Envirobuild manual here on page 20
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