Hey Wy, thanks!
That might be an interesting option.
Water is such a way of life for us top left cornerers that it seems someone would come up with a solution. I will add Harvey's Marine to my shopping expedition.
I'm sorry to say that life has been so nutty lately that most of my projects have been put on hold - its a good thing that I have the winter to think on things.
I did throw some really thin sheets of wood coated with melamine out into the back yard about a week ago. Its been raining to beat the band and they are holding up very well. By spring I might just have a whole little wooden body farm of decomposition experiments out there!
boomerang, there are materials out there, especially made for cold/wet climates.
Trex is made out of recycled plastic bags and recycled
wood, and should be most durable without having to paint
or maintain the deck for years to come. Look here:
http://www.trex.com/products/whatistrex.asp
Trex is not inexpensive and needs a great deal of support system as it doesn't span very far, structurally.
That Trex stuff looks pretty cool. My neighbors have a deck made out of stuff made out of recycled concrete.
I like envionmentally light products. I will certainly be checking out the product Noddy pointed out.
The problem with Trex is that it still has that liner aspect that I'm trying to avoid.
Right now I'm really looking for a cheap, cosmetic fix. Although, lately I've been thinking of moving the old deck over to the back corner of the yard to create kind of a cooking, eating pavillion (not near as fancy as that sounds). The path Mo and I have been digging leads to that corner and it would keep all of that junk away from the house.
I'm thinking of doing that -- and of making the old deck area just part of the patio area. Earlier I was concerned because I didn't know how to inexpensivly make a step down from the house to the yard. Then I saw this totally cool stay put concrete build it yourself pillar thing and thought I could top the pillars with a big slab of wood. Three pillar/slab steps are all I would need to get down to the ground.
I suppose I could have made this story much shorter by saying that perhaps the cheapest way to improve the deck is to get rid of it!
Now I just need to figure out what to build my patio area out of....
Mr. B hates pea gravel but I love the sound it makes, and its cheap.
He wants poured concrete (oh please no (from me)).
Wood decks are built the way they are for a reason, having to do with both how wood grows as trees (vertical-linear) and how it can be placed so that water doesn't just sit on it - thus the presence of some spacing between the planks, usually about 3/16"; this spacing also allows for some swelling and shrinkage. Wood decks in wet climes last longer if they are screwed to support system from underneath.
Trex planks, as I mentioned, have no or little structural strength, and the underpinning has therefore to be spaced more closely than in regular cedar decks. A wood that is fairly new in use in our area is Ipe, which is the Tabebuia impetiginosa tree, farmed and harvested ecologically in Brazil, that is, if it is stamped certified. This is a dense and structurally strong wood, and takes much less underpinning support. It is expensive, but you save on the support wood. I have a bias against trex and similar products since I think it looks phony, even if it is expensive. But that's just me, many people like it for its low maintenance quality.
If you like the sound of gravel and the feel of gravel, you might considered
a large raised terrace, held in by stacking lengths of 6" x 8" x 8 ft. cedar (landscape ties) and filling the interior of the square or rectangle with soil up to 3 1/2 inches from the top (compacted) add weed block, and then 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 inches of crushed rock - not gravel - but relatively small local crushed rock. This compacts better than pea gravel and so is easier to walk on. The landscape ties need to be drilled and held atop one another with rebar, or have rebar steel taped to the inside face of the stack, to hold them in place over time. If they're drilled, the hole should be plugged.
If you do pour concrete or use some flat (whatever material you try out),
be sure that the surface texture isn't completely smooth, as that is slippery, and be sure the pad drains at least at 1/8" per foot or even 1/4" per foot, away from the house. I strongly suggest paying the money to have concrete done by a licensed landscape or general contractor. Concrete texture can be achieved by a certain kind of washing off before it is fully set, thus exposing some of the aggregate in the mix.
You can also make a patio out of bricks over sand, given that the soil area is level, the builder's sand is held in by headers, and that that is rigged up also to drain about 2% away from the house. There are books on all this by HP and Ortho and Sunset and probably lots of other folks.
There are lots of interlocking pavers available, with systems to hold them in, but they often have a commercial look to some viewers.
You can make a patio out of broken concrete... if the concrete is from old paths or sidewalks. Similar to a brick on sand patio, you set up your area with headers and a rock dust or builder's sand base, level the pavers (not that easy, a mason is good to have around) and then mortar between. And that should drain at around 2% too.
Your area may have some lumberyards or companies that carry recycled products. You might find some old thick redwood beams in a place like that...
If you give in and go for the concrete (which I like myself), you can add color to the mix with various products so that it doesn't come out bright white, or you can have stones imbedded in it from above. I've tried that myself, not easy the first time, but it can be a nice look.
Wow, osso! Thanks!
We already have headers (I didn't know thats what they were called) from an old gravel patio area. I scooped up all of the loose gravel and dumped it into the bottom of the big planter I built so I have a pretty hard, compacted surface to work with. This is the area where I was thinking pea gravel.
I was thinking of a broken stone type surface as I'm not that keen on regularity but I don't really want it mortored. It seems like I have seen a lot of patios using broken stone that haven't been mortored - am I imagining that?
I've done it myself in my own yard, it's fine. I hope you like weeding....
A compromise is to mortar the middle part that is the main path to outside, and only mortar under the broken concrete and not the inbetweens toward the outer edges.
My side yard is all raised planters and crushed stone, held in by headers, and then a shrub/tree/herbacious border all around. My raised planters have seating pads... they're pretty hefty planters... and look pretty nice when I get out there and take the dandelions out of the iris bed, etc.
Let me add that the mortar adds stability...
My neighbor told me to check out, I think it was called quarter-minus, instead of pea gravel. I'm not too worried about weediness as the main patio area is pretty established and compacted and we don't really have a week problem now. I've dug a trench along the perimeter thinking to plant some tall oramental grasses or something low, like hosta (but it might be too sunny for hosta).
This is all pretty new to me. I really got started on it because Mo wanted to stay home and dig. I need to hit the library and check out the books you've mentioned here and on the other thread, osso. I looked for them in the bookstore and found they were very expensive.
Your yard sounds beautiful!
not yet... it isn't!
I meant weeds between the pavers. They do tend to appear in the soil..
Boomer, we have a great lumberyard here that has a big area set aside with bookshelves and a lot of how to books, right as you come in the door, for sale, but also for looking through while you're there, with tables and chairs and coffee and a fireplace going on chilly days. I think that is a great idea in a lumber/hardware/nursery business.
