Decks, Patios, Porches and Docks - deck spacing

My wolmanized lumber deck has 2 x 6's as the floor, but the contractor did not leave any space between the boards. They are butted up against one another. It is extremely difficult to clean since dirt, etc. goes into the small groove caused by the curvature of the boards at the edges.
What if I ran a circular saw down the grooves to create a space between the boards? Is there anything wrong with this idea?
Thanks

Your contractor blew it!!

A wood deck, even built in the dead of winter, needs some space between the boards. Running a Skil saw down the board edges will help, but I'm not sure you'll be happy with the looks of the deck if you do it. How good are you with a Skil saw?? Using a straight edge to guide the saw is one option -- assuming that the boards are straight! But before I did anything like that, I would call the contractor back and have HIM remove all of the decking and gap it. Right now, the deck is under his warranty -- your State Contractor's Licensing Board says so. (He does have a contractor's license, doesn't he??) If you touch it with a Skil saw, and you will lose that recourse.

I would leave it alone, in a year when the wood shrinks the spacing will be right.
Frank

What Frank99 is saying is true -- the wood is going to shrink this summer. The gaps will appear. The problem you MIGHT run into is next winter, when the deck gets rained on and the wood swells back up. How MUCH it will swell depends on factors like the moisture content of the decking when it was installed and how much it rains next year. Who knows?? If it shrinks more this summer than it swells next winter, you'll be OK. But if it swells more than it shrinks, it will start popping nails or screws and splitting boards.

Best course of action at this point is to call the contractor and make him aware of your problem and your concerns. If he says wait a year and see what happens, go along with it. You've got time. As long as the contractor is licensed, his warranty will be about 3 years -- depending on the contracting laws of your State.

I agree with frank and lefty. The wood shoiuld shrink this summer. I would stain or seal it at that time. This should prevent it from swelling back up. Since most decking materials are installed green it is common practice to but them up, otherwise when they shrink the gap would be to big.

Thanks for all the input. Here's more info. The deck is 6 years old and no shrinkage ever occured (by the way, I'm in Cleveland). Therefore, there won't be any shrinkage and no warranty left (I should have taken care of it right away, but didn't). The deck boards were power nailed. If they had been screwed, I would consider removing all the screws and spacing the floor. But I don't know what to do with them being nailed. Any idea? I will try to contact the contractor that installed it to see what they might recommend. Thanks again for your advice.


What Frank99 is saying is true -- the wood is going to shrink this summer. The gaps will appear. The problem you MIGHT run into is next winter, when the deck gets rained on and the wood swells back up. How MUCH it will swell depends on factors like the moisture content of the decking when it was installed and how much it rains next year. Who knows?? If it shrinks more this summer than it swells next winter, you'll be OK. But if it swells more than it shrinks, it will start popping nails or screws and splitting boards.

Best course of action at this point is to call the contractor and make him aware of your problem and your concerns. If he says wait a year and see what happens, go along with it. You've got time. As long as the contractor is licensed, his warranty will be about 3 years -- depending on the contracting laws of your State.

I agree with NOT spacing the boards, I used to do that about 8 years ago, then when going back to bid other jobs, naturally I'd want to look at the deck and man would that gapping get large. Started butting them tight when wood is fresh and it dries/shrinks to proper gapping. Right now the wood is freshly "pressed" with the chemicals and extremely saturated. Give it some time to dry with the summer heat and UV rays and it'll be perfect.

Only thing i do not like is the fact they are nailed. I know all the nails now days have "adhesive" on them that sets up from the heat of being driven, but due to expansion/contraction rates of the wood, I still think that over time the nails will lose some of their holding capacity and squeeky boards may soon follow. I could be wrong since I personally have never done it, also did they use clipped head of full head nails. If using clipped head you just lost a little bit of holding power with lack of under the head on the wood.

Your contractor blew it!!

A wood deck, even built in the dead of winter, needs some space between the boards. Running a Skil saw down the board edges will help, but I'm not sure you'll be happy with the looks of the deck if you do it. How good are you with a Skil saw?? Using a straight edge to guide the saw is one option -- assuming that the boards are straight! But before I did anything like that, I would call the contractor back and have HIM remove all of the decking and gap it. Right now, the deck is under his warranty -- your State Contractor's Licensing Board says so. (He does have a contractor's license, doesn't he??) If you touch it with a Skil saw, and you will lose that recourse.

Left
Sadly in alot of states in this great country of ours, there are no contractor licenses, good portion of the midwest is like that. As far as the spacing, built a few hundred wooden decks in my time, never have spaced the decking, always butted it tight and the drying process takes care of gapping. But NAILS?? :eek: Never would I think of nailing down the deck planks, that's gonna be a problem for sure

Like IHI said, there is normally a very high moisture content in the treated lumber. On the deck we were building last week, it would squirt out of the screws as they were being driven. Maybe it's just me, but I think the ACQ has more moisture in it than CCA had, personally I'm not entirely solf on the research which led to the switch to ACQ. It's definitely some nasty stuff to work with IMHO and also seems like the manufacturer's are using lower quality wood for treatment that they have in the past.

Personally I'm thinking quite seriously of just offering composite decking. What I'm looking at is the amount of call backs due to warped and cracking/splitting boards from the treated lumber these days. I've noticed a sizeable increase in the call backs, that coupled with the fact I can now offer composite decking from CorrectDeck which has a 25 yr manufacturer's warranty at only about 1/3 more in material costs over treated, seems like a good business decision

I have gone to doing composite and vinyl decks almost exclusively. Wasn't a 'business decision' on my part -- I'm just following what the customers are asking for. It's been 3 years since I put down a wood deck.

In CA, we have redwood available, so nobody uses PT for decking. Besides, the PT we have available is either doug fir or hem fir. That stuff makes great mud sill (a use where it is never seen), and is graded accordingly. I would have to buy at least 50% more mat'l than I needed to find enough 'deck grade' lumber to use it for decking. PT pine would cost as much as, if not more than, most composites.

Maybe redwood is different than PT pine. But in building a deck with redwood, the installer ALWAYS gaps the deck boards with a 16d nail -- and slightly more in the summer. At that, the gaps are pretty much non-existent in the winter for the first few years of the deck's life.

NAILS??? They are fine to use in the framing of a deck, but NEVER to attach the deck boards with -- not since the invention of deck screws!!