|
There are all sorts of synthetic decking materials on the
market. We've got a page in the Home Improvement World section
with links
to different manufacturers. You also can get
tongue-and-groove wood that is not treated, but it's a
maintenance headache because it needs to be painted or stained
to prevent rot. You can also get tongue-and-groove treated
3/4" decking, but not at Home Depot. Here in the Midwest
a store called Menard's sells that.
But there is the issue of
slope. Most decks are not built with the slope needed to make
water drip off. You might be able to create the required slope
by installing some long tapered shims on top of each joist.
I like the
"underworld" idea better. In fact, I've built
something just like what you described. You ask if copper
would be reasonable in cost? I've never used copper for
anything (except plumbing) because it's darned expensive, so
I'm told.
What I did was help a client
make a "pee shield". I don't mean to sound vulgar,
but this family had a huge house with an upper-level deck
directly above another deck/patio at the basement level. (It
was a walk-out basement) Well, they had a pair of dogs that
were escape artists, and the only way they could keep the dogs
in the yard was to put them on the upper deck. They basically
lived there. Did their business there. If you were standing on
the patio below and heard a trickling sound, you had to cover
your head and RUN!
So my job was to help this
client build a shield to prevent liquids from dribbling on the
heads of people below. It was pretty easy, actually. We ripped
some 2x6's into really long tapers. I just snapped chalk lines
and cut the boards with a circular saw. We screwed these
tapered boards to the underside of the deck joists, so the
thickest end was farthest from the house, making that the
lowest point. We stapled some black plastic to the underside
of the taper-modified joists, and then we fastened sheets of
1/2" treated plywood on that. The idea was to use the
plastic as a barrier and the plywood as the structure. We used
3 foot wide plastic and spanned two joist bays per run. This
kind of plastic will decompose in sunlight, but being under
the deck it would receive almost no direct sunlight, so the
plastic should last a long time.
I did quite a bit of work on
that house for two years afterwards, and the pee shield worked
well. You could still get a canine golden shower (ick, what a
thought!) if you stood under the outlet of the plywood, but
the danger zone was reduced from a couple hundred square feet
to a narrow strip. And gutters could probably be installed to
catch what dripped off the plywood shield.
So that's what I do for a
living.
Bruce W. Maki, Editor.
|
