I remodeled a house three years ago. The builder may alot of mistakes,
including many of the subs he chose to use. Unofrtunately we were not under
contract but paid him hourly so our recourse is limited. The rebuilt a deck
using plywood on doug fir joists hanging on a cleat bolted to the side of my
house. He opted to cover the deck with a rubberized coating covered with
aggregage but never did the finish coat as he said when the job was
finished, I could do that. In the meantime, with all of the rain, the seams
opened up letting water through the deck causing significant staining as
well to checking on the plywood below. There is alot of black stuff that
could be mold but I suspect could just be dirt too. One part of the deck
was sheeted over existing red wood slats and on that deck that is smaller,
the damage seems more severe. I opened up some soft spots and scooped out
the plywood down to the red wood which was still wet from the winter. I
called in the develper of the deck system and he informed me that the joints
of the plywood should have been filled with a heavier version of the liquid
rubber and taped with 4" polyproplene tape prior to the first coat of liquid
rubber. This was not done and he says this is why the seams opened up. He
said the rubber and aggregage coat should have protected the deck without
the finish acrylic coating. He says that on the sheeting over the red wood
he can make a "matrix" slurry of rubber and sand and fill the voids, but
some are as big as 4" X 6" usually around the joint. On the rest of the
deck which was sheeted on joists without an underlying deck he says that
to flat frame 2 X 4 s supporting the under side of each seam will help and
it anything is bad enough it can be cut out and replaced. He says that
if I can cut out wood rot it will be fine just to patch or fill but this
is beyond my knowledge. I don't know if it was the builder, roofer who did
the deck or the manufacturer of the product who erred. The roofer says
that the specs at the time he did the deck did not call for taping the deck.
The manufacturer is recommending just patching with the slurry, cutting out
and replacing where needed and them recoating areas with liquid rubber and
then a finish coat of acrylic. Is this just a bandaid? I don't have the
money to rebuild the deck? Also, I have been testing primers and have not
found one yet to seal the water damage well. The manufacturer says to prime
with a WATER based acrylic primer so it the deck ever leaks it won't trap
water in the plywood a harm it anymore. I know that BIN would be good but
it is oil based??? Is there a good deck system that can go over this and act
like a solid membreane holding all water off of the deck. It has been so
compromised that just going with this system after the repairs scares me.
Also the deck sits on a shim of plywood that runs the length of the deck
as the builder had not done the elevation correctly. The strip looks
water stained and somewhat damaged but does not crumble to the touch.
Should I just seal it and leave it alone By the way this deck is maybe
20 X 40 and wraps around my house. Any help or advise would be appreciated.
Thanks.

Good God, what a mess. There's so many things going on there I cannot
even figure out what the whole story is. I'd guess there's no reason
to believe that any of it is workable.

{Another good reason to build PATIOS out of MASONRY, not DECKS out of
CRAP.}

On Sun, 29 May 2005 00:15:53 GMT, someone wrote:

I remodeled a house three years ago. The builder may alot of mistakes,
including many of the subs he chose to use. Unofrtunately we were not under
contract but paid him hourly so our recourse is limited. The rebuilt a deck
using plywood on doug fir joists hanging on a cleat bolted to the side of my
house.

Jeez, a plywood "deck" - Deck does that mean people walk on it? Good
luck keeping that waterproofed so the plywood never rots. That's just
nuts.


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