Ensuring Deck Durability: Common Issues in Building Inspection
One of the must have is any Nz house hold is a deck. A place to entertain and have those summer BBQ’s, but lurking underneath the drinks and nibbles can end up being a horror. At Honeycomb Construction we check the structure where possible and often find multiple issues.
Below is a deck we inspected, there was shock and horror the moment of entering the subfloor. Giant alarm bells started ringing immediately. To the untrained eye everything looks legit, but really it is far from it. Some of the issues are structural while others are watertightness issues. Lets dive into the issues.
- The stringer, what is it? The horizontal framing timber which holds the joists, they are perpendicular to the stringer. The joists then holds the deck boards. Each member are critical for load transfer. On the photo below the string appears to be a 90 x 45 framing timber which in most cases in insufficient, we often see 140 x 45 or wider. More worrying was the lack of bolts throughout the structure. All that is holding this stringer are nails!
- Weatherboards , we all know what those are. But what is the problem? Well, the lack of weatherboards in this instance. For some odd reason, it has been removed and water ingress is visible even to the other side on second picture. Typical deck construction requires the weatherboard to start, a 12mm gap between the cladding and the deck with Epdm washers which acts kind of like an O ring to stop the water entering. By removing the weatherboard gradual rot damage would occur, left long enough there would be a possibility of the wall collapsing.
- Piles the start to any deck. We check piles during our inspections and note if any are leaning, the size etc. In this example the pile is leaning and does not appear to be the correct size to the standard at the time of inspection. The bearer on this side is possibly another issue, the size and the fact there is only one member. Bearers typically are doubled and sized according to the 3604. Bearers are the members above the piles and hold the joists.
With these issues the deck would most likely need to be rebuilt, without even mentioning any issues on the surface above the deck like the incorrect handrail height and balustrade spacing issues. Millimeters count, with capillary action water will sit and slowly degrade the materials around it. With a building inspection in Auckland from Honeycomb Property Inspections, you can rest assured that we thoroughly check the property.
Some samples from our report:
