Apply hardener, putty or epoxy for wood If minor damaged wood cannot be easily replaced, hardener, putty or epoxy can help strengthen the damaged area. When repairing a deck, you will need to remove nails or screws from damaged boards. Use a pry bar, screwdriver or drill on the platform. If the fasteners do not come out, cut the board into pieces with a chisel or saw, pick up the chips and replace the board.
Cut deck posts into multiple sections to make them easier to handle. Temporarily hold the upper deck with wood or another method to eliminate saw blade jamming. Use a jigsaw, circular saw, or double blade saw to make those horizontal cuts. The blades of any of these saws are usually not long enough to cut the post in a continuous cut.
Instead, start the cut on one side of the post, then switch to the other side of the post and complete the cut. If your deck boards are rotting, there may be several reasons why you should do so. The first is what is called galvanic rot. Galvanic rot occurs when galvanized nails or screws are inserted into pressure-treated wood.
The chemicals in the wood react with nails causing rust. This leads to corrosion inside the plates. The only solution to repair galvanic rot is to remove and replace the affected boards from the roof, thus preventing the spread of rot. If wood rot is still in the initial stage and is planted in a small part, it can be changed.
But if the rot has spread too much, it would be good to completely replace the joist. Rotten wood poles are more difficult to remove than decking boards because they are significantly larger and are usually anchored to the ground in concrete. When detected early, it is possible to repair the damage without having to replace the entire deck. Often, the wooden posts or beams of a platform may appear relatively intact from the outside, but the inside may be rotten and brittle beyond repair.
If the repairs are not symmetrical and are distributed over the entire width of the structure, there will be bending, twisting or deformation of the platform. Guardrails and protectors made of rotten wood are especially dangerous because people who use the deck depend on them for safety. However, it means that the repair of decking wood rot should be done as soon as possible to prevent rot from spreading. It is usually possible to maintain the same appearance using the same deck planks, and with enough art in the color that matches the filling with old wooden joists, repairs may not seem obvious even from below.
The good thing is that, with regular maintenance, you can prevent your deck from needing a more expensive repair.
