21 VIDEO ROT RESISTANT DECK BOARD ENDS*

In this video tip I want to show you two ways to deal with deck boards

One way is quite common but far less than ideal. And the other hardly ever happens and it does a really good job

Here you've got the deck floor joists. They're typically 2x8 or 2x10 lumber

Here are the deck boards, usually 2x6, sometimes what's called 5 quarter by 6, which actually

measures 1 full inch in thickness, so half an inch less than regular 2x6 lumber

The problem is that there's only one joist here over the joint between two deck boards

This causes two problems. First, any fasteners are going to have to be driven close to the ends of the boards

encouraging cracking. But more of a problem than this has to do with moisture

The boards are tight, so rainwater gets in between the gap and it stays there

The wood stays damp for long periods of time and this promotes rot

Wood is really a whole bunch of tubes left over from when the tree was alive, and these

wick moisture up past the ends of the boards and really make rot happen

It's not unusual for the ends of deck boards to rot out quite quickly, and that spells

the end of any deck far earlier than should happen. Over here we've got two joists

You don't have two joists everywhere, but only where deck board ends meet

You can plan this ahead of time. This allows you to draw the deck boards back so there's about a quarter of an inch gap

between them. The joists are typically one inch apart, which allows you to drive fasteners well back from

the ends of the boards, so there's far less chance of splitting

The main advantage of all this is that it allows rainwater to simply drain on down through

and the ends of those boards to dry. When they stay dry, they're not going to rot, and you can really extend deck life with this

little strategy