When building a deck/porch...

[sunny & the 5 egg layers]

Today we started taking our old deck apart. And right now we are cutting boards for the top of the deck. I was wondering if we should use nails or screws to keep the top boards in place? The person that built our deck before used nails but they are a pain in the neck to get out. What would you recommend?
Thank you in advance.

 

[MamaRoo]

Screws. Much easier to disassemble, make repairs, fix the board you just put in crooked, etc.

 

[sunny & the 5 egg layers]

Screws it is!
Thank you!

 

[Orchid]

Quote:
And they won't pop up/out with wood expansion and contraction.

 

[crossgirl]

Deck screws. They go in real easy. Zip, zip, zip!

 

[Royd]

Not just any screw. Use a designated deck screw. Preferably, the painted ones....Use the ones with a Torx head or a square head. If you must use ones with Phillips head, be sure that they will recieve a #3 tip.

Stainless are far more expensive than the painted ones, and are no better. DO NOT USE THE BLACK DRYWALL TYPE, EVEN WITH A COURSE THREAD.....THEY WILL RUST AND BREAK LOOSE.

Since you are replacing the boards, be sure that the new screws are long enough to get past any old nail holes. Probably 2 1/2 or 3 inches.

Try to leave the screw head flush of just slightly depressed into the board. It looks better and if you need to remove a board, you can find the screw.

If you can't get a board pulled down easily, use an extra screw, rather than trying to sock a single screw farther down.

As for the carpentry, place the boards with the cup down.

Start with the straightest boards and set them to a chalk line.

Using a spacer on each end, allows you to take a bow out of the board, which you are installing or mark off your joists on centers and stick with it.

Unless you are using a composite decking, which usually has their own special deck screws, use a drill and predrill the ends. Otherwise, quite a few of the boards will split, which defeats the use of screws.

 

[fuzziebutt]

I forgot the title, and thought something was happening to the BYC boards...

 

[Carols Clucks]

I use Deckmates for almost everything, saves a lot of wear on this gals arms trying to pound in nails

 

[Avalon1984]

Squareheads for sure. They are hard to strip for somebody as untalented than me and always worked

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

Screws will hold better but they cost about 10 time what nails do. If your talking about a small deck that can be done with about 2 pounds of nails then spending an extra $18 on screws may be worth it. If your talking about a deck that will take 50 pounds of nails then an extra $450 for screws may not be worth it.

Nails will hold fine so price the two for the whole job then choose.