Decking cracking please help

[paulwilson]

I supplied the timber and all materials, I added on accordingly if I ever did in fact ever have to go back. It is though the large area that has cracked why I am so unhappy.
Surely unless its a faulty batch you should not have such a large area cracking.
If it was 4 or 5 boards I would have simply mentioned it at the merchants and gone and done it but its not going to be an hours work to fix it mate.

 

[ratman123]

It is an issue caused by the drying of the material, and not the fitting, fixings, gaps etc which all seem to spec.


I would say this level of checking is acceptable and quite normal for such decking.

These checks seem to run the whole length of the board, and I might reject such boards. Though it depends on the %, if it was only 10-15% of the boards that had such checks, which it appears to be, It could be argued that it was to an acceptable level.

 

[paulwilson]

Hi guys just a quick update on this, I have now been given 20 new boards by the local timber merchant to keep me and my customer happy, I have since emailed arbordeck again since Friday and received this reply, can anyone uncode this from joiner talk to laymans terms thanks ever so much, Paul...

Hi Paul



My apologies – I have been away from the office for a few days.

I hopefully should be back to you shortly with an answer.



1 point to mention – 600mm centres on an ex 32mm board is not advisable. For domestic decks 400mm centres is the correct measurement when using C16 graded joists. (You can use an ex 38mm board with up to 600mm centres for domestic decks on C16 graded joists)

 

[big-all]

yes the boards are to thin for the span [distance between the supporting timbers]

so 32mm boards need supporting every 400mm
38mm boards iff your supports are 600mm appart

 

[paulwilson]

I dont believe that at all, the deck has total support with 600mm centre joists running lengthways and 600mm centre supports going the opposite way.

 

[ratman123]

According to some span tables I have, ex 25x150 boards would span 400-450(depending on grade of deck boards) and ex 38x150 600.

I would imagine ex 32 boards would sit somewhere in the middle and you could probably span 500-550, 600 does seem to be “on the line”.

This however won’t have anything to do with the splitting.

 

[paulwilson]

Just another quick update.

Builders merchant provided me with 20 boards and delivered on Thursday of last week.
Hand picked by myself and a member of their builders yard the boards were fine, went today and a lot of the boards are split.

Customer not happy and requested that I leave the decking alone and contact the management team of the builders merchants, no joy with this so contacted arbordeck.

To their credit they are coming from their head office early on Monday morning, god knows what will happen now, but they must be taking it seriously.