Hi

I have an ugly concrete square in my garden about 7ft by 10ft left by
the previous owners when they demolished a garage. It is level and
raised about 6 inches off the ground.

I was thinking of somehow laying wooden decking directly on top of the
concrete to make it look nicer. Is this possible and, if so, how would
I go about fixing the wood to the concrete? glue?

Also I saw some convenient sqaure decking 'tiles' on sale in homebase
(they are about 2ft square). Anyone had any sucess with these and do
they look nice when laid?

Many thanks

ps I am looking to get 10 years out of the decking not a lifetime!

wrote:
Hi

I have an ugly concrete square in my garden about 7ft by 10ft left by
the previous owners when they demolished a garage. It is level and
raised about 6 inches off the ground.

I was thinking of somehow laying wooden decking directly on top of the
concrete to make it look nicer. Is this possible and, if so, how would
I go about fixing the wood to the concrete? glue?

Also I saw some convenient sqaure decking 'tiles' on sale in homebase
(they are about 2ft square). Anyone had any sucess with these and do
they look nice when laid?

Many thanks

ps I am looking to get 10 years out of the decking not a lifetime!

Frank, Hi.

I had 3 layers of patio in my rear garden, one on top of the other.
Where they met the house, it was so high that they breached the DPC in
the back wall.
Being a big patio and having little inclination to rip it all up and
bring it throught the house to get rid of it all, I decided on the
following (with the approval of my builder-mate).

We removed all 3 layers near the house, to a distance of about 6' into
the garden, to get the ground level back down below the DPC. The rest
of the patio, we just left in situ. We then made up timber frames (3 of
them about 10x12' each) and raised these off of the patio, by using
short lengths of 4x2" sawn timber. Adjusting the lengths of the short
bits of 4x2 enabled us to level the 3 frames and the result looked like
3 large tables on very short legs (each frame had joists and noggins at
about 400mm centres and a leg at each juncture). We dipped each leg
into a tin of liquid damp-proof membrane (black-jack I think it was
called) before positioning and nailing to the frame. The legs stood
directly onto the patio slabs. The frames were then decked out with
lengths of 'decking' board!

It worked great and hid all that unsightly pation, as well as saving us
a lot of labouring.

I would suggest that you incorporate some form of damp proof system
(membrane sheeting perhaps) but this could be quite a cost. Better
still, can you raise the decking up a bit? It would cost less to
damp-proof the "legs" and an added benefit would be that air could
circulate underneath the deck, thus further inhibitting any possible
damp (thus rot) problems.

HTH
deano.

I would go with Deano's suggestion of raising the deck off the concrete
base first. If you just layer plastic underneath decking boards, while
it will stop water rising through from the concrete, you will end up
with puddles of water sitting under the deck. This will, in time, rot
the wood.

I suspect the best would be to adopt the traditional approach of
creating a frame to sit on top of the concrete, and then attach the
decking boards.

I have no experience of the decking tiles that you mention - I have
seen some, and they look pretty flimsy to me, so I would be unsure as
to whether they would survive your 10 year period. I also suspect they
will work out quite expensive, compared with decking boards.

deano wrote:
wrote:
Hi

I have an ugly concrete square in my garden about 7ft by 10ft left by
the previous owners when they demolished a garage. It is level and
raised about 6 inches off the ground.

I was thinking of somehow laying wooden decking directly on top of the
concrete to make it look nicer. Is this possible and, if so, how would
I go about fixing the wood to the concrete? glue?

Also I saw some convenient sqaure decking 'tiles' on sale in homebase
(they are about 2ft square). Anyone had any sucess with these and do
they look nice when laid?

Many thanks

ps I am looking to get 10 years out of the decking not a lifetime!

Frank, Hi.

I had 3 layers of patio in my rear garden, one on top of the other.
Where they met the house, it was so high that they breached the DPC in
the back wall.
Being a big patio and having little inclination to rip it all up and
bring it throught the house to get rid of it all, I decided on the
following (with the approval of my builder-mate).

We removed all 3 layers near the house, to a distance of about 6' into
the garden, to get the ground level back down below the DPC. The rest
of the patio, we just left in situ. We then made up timber frames (3 of
them about 10x12' each) and raised these off of the patio, by using
short lengths of 4x2" sawn timber. Adjusting the lengths of the short
bits of 4x2 enabled us to level the 3 frames and the result looked like
3 large tables on very short legs (each frame had joists and noggins at
about 400mm centres and a leg at each juncture). We dipped each leg
into a tin of liquid damp-proof membrane (black-jack I think it was
called) before positioning and nailing to the frame. The legs stood
directly onto the patio slabs. The frames were then decked out with
lengths of 'decking' board!

It worked great and hid all that unsightly pation, as well as saving us
a lot of labouring.

I would suggest that you incorporate some form of damp proof system
(membrane sheeting perhaps) but this could be quite a cost. Better
still, can you raise the decking up a bit? It would cost less to
damp-proof the "legs" and an added benefit would be that air could
circulate underneath the deck, thus further inhibitting any possible
damp (thus rot) problems.

HTH
deano.