Reconditioning outside platform questions

[Jim Mackell]

Answering various questions in no particular order. The deck is about 15 x 35. It's in an isolated picnic grove with no power or water supply. Whoever laid it originally used sheetrock screws, so the suggestions to try and flip over the boards and reattach might be a good one. I know those damn screws will break as soon as we touch them. I'll grab a picture tomorrow or Wednesday.

[Tom M King]

Up until about 17 years ago, deck screws were nothing more than coarse threaded sheetrock screws that were galvanized. If you catch it when the wood is soaking wet, you can get out over 90% of them. If the wood is dry and tight around the screws, forget it. I used them back then and before, and have flipped more than a few boards put in with them. You might loose 10% of the boards from breaking screws and bad board sides, but it's still worth a try.

I use something like this for boards with screws that break, and even then you can save some of those boards. Often, if the head has popped in trying to unscrew it, the rest of the screw will just pull through. I just beat those screws back down, which usually breaks them. You can unscrew them with visegrips , but that takes more time.

https://www.amazon.com/Bobs-Pallet-B...s%2C97&sr=8-24

[Bill Dufour]

I would be very worried about rot and the entire deck coming down killing everyone on it. It only took ten years to rot and fall. It does not rain that much in Berkeley and not at all in summer.
How many stories is it off the ground?
Berkeley closed their public fishing pier soon after due to rot.
Bill D.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_balcony_collapse

[Mel Fulks]

I agree you have to be careful. Lots of old apartment buildings still have old fire escape - porches. For seven years I lived in on the
3rd floor and we often had a bunch of hippy friends covering it. But it never crashed …. some of the friends ‘crashed’ , but were fine in the
morning. Good times !