Mike: Several months into a major remodeling project, both inside and outside this house, the homeowner space did a new challenge. What to do with this barren backyard? Their decision, build an 1100 square foot multi-level deck. But instead of choosing a traditional wood deck, they decided to go with a low maintenance composite decking material from Monarch Deck. When it comes to building decks a lot of people use treated lumber and rationally doing that for the base of our deck but for the planks, the part you are going to see, we went with Monarch Deck. The reason we chose this for our planks is that they use a composite material, plastic resins mix with wood fibers. We have that wood grain look but we would don’t have to ever stain it or paint it. It’s not going to warp, crack, chip, never gonna split, won’t have any nail pops whatsoever. That means you’re not gonna spend time maintaining your deck you’re gonna spend time enjoying your deck.
Paul: Lets face it, what people want is they want a deck that looks like wood, they just wouldn’t have to maintain it.
Mike: Monarch uses wood flower instead of sawdust as a composite material and the company claims that enhances the products performance.
Paul: The reason it work so well is that by using wood flower instead of sawdust it enables us to better encapsulate the wood particles so you don’t get the real open pores surface that you see on some other composite decking, has a smoother finish and you are able to emboss a better looking wood grain on it.
Mike: Whether you are building a house, a deck a sturdy level foundation is critical and because this deck features a different plank layout properly spacing the joist is also critical.
Paul: You want to have a maximum of 16 inches on center in any straight perpendicular type of system but on a decking behind the here where we’ve got it running at a 45-degree angle you want to run it on more than 12 inches on the center because we’re running a dag all along the deckward self expanding further because its running on an angle and the whole reason you want to do that is you don’t want to expand it too far so that there is no springyness you got a nice solid substantial deck that you can entertain a whole bunch of people on it and it’ll be real solid you know for the life of the deck.
Mike: Instead of a fastening our planks to the joist from the top, we are using an innovative heavy duty galvanized steel underdeck fastening system by Shadow Track. The whole idea behind the Shadow Track system is that we don’t want any holes in the top of our plank we don’t want a nail head, we don’t want to expose a screw head we put everything in from the bottom. So we actually start with the Shadow Track and we lay it down on top of the beams of our base system we put what’s known as a true hold screw in to hold it down in place. Once that is in place we could put a plank in anywhere since there’s holes all the way along there and you don’t have to line it up, don’t do anything special take a drill it has a 90 degree angle and we are coming all the way from the bottom and just go ahead and screw it in place. And now we have a nice smooth finish on the top of our deck and yet it’s strong and it’s gonna be there for a life time. This composite decking cuts and installs just like wood and like wood as planks are laid you should leave a one eighth gap for seasonal expansion and contraction. The easiest way to get proper spacing between the planks is to use a 16 penny nail, this way the deck will have an even spacing and a uniform look. Monarch also developed the railing system made of the same high strength decking material with a PVC coding.
Paul: Our holes are predrilled this is the bottom rail right here and the whole reason that we use the bottom rail is the fact that you float it up of the deck. We use a bracket system that mounts directly to post. And also in cleaning, now you don’t have to clean in between all those in balusters or down the deck itself. But with these holes all predrilled, what you do is you take the baluster and like we said before you got the holes predrilled or extruded in place. You line it up with the hole in the bottom rail and run your screw through the bottom right through to the baluster. So then you also do the exact same thing on the retainer rail itself and then when you’re all done, you got everything all screwed in place, then you finish sliding the top rail like this, like that. And by doing that we hide all the fasteners so you end up with a nice clean installation. There’s no exposed screws on the handrail itself, no exposed screws at the bottom rail.
Mike: The railing system attaches to the post with bolts.
Paul: We end up with a very strong substantial system. Much like what you have with a traditional wood railing system be it cedar or treated or something like that. And then also, since we do all pre-drilling for you, we’ve already done all the spacing so it meets the building code requirements being less than four inches between the spindles. And so also the parents won’t have to worry about the kids somehow fitting the balusters and anything like that.
Mike: To complete the fully finish look of the deck, Monarch also makes composite post sleeves. The installers also use the sleeves and decking material to improvise a functional and attractive benches and a planter box. For more information on how you can build your deck with the smooth nail free surface, visit Shadow Track on the internet at shadowtrack.com.
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