How to fix blueboard to fence frame and how to replace pool deck?

[Sunnycoast5]

Hi,

I'm tackling what hopefully will not be too big of an ask for my skillset. I have a 25 M long blueboard rendered front fence that is in dire need of a fix. The blueboard has long gone past it's best & is crumbling off the frame. My initial thoughts were to demo it & have a fencer erect something more aesthetically pleasing. Like everyone, finding a tradie is one thing, getting them to turn up is quite something else again. I removed the sheeting on the house side of the fence to inspect the frame. To my surprise, the frame was generally in good health so I decided to just strengthen the frame everywhere possible & it is now very sturdy. My intention is to just replace all of the sheeting, cover the joints with paper jointing tape & joint compound & then painting. What is the best way to fix the sheeting to the fence frame? Each fence "panel" is 2 x 2400/900 sheets, so 2400 wide & 1800 high. The pics might explain better than myself!

Onto my next & probably most challenging project, the pool deck. As per the pics, it's very obvious that the joists etc are far from serviceable. My thoughts are to just replace each piece of timber with a similarly sized piece of structural H3 pine & then merbau over the top. Any input greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Steve

Steve

[Sunnycoast5]

Ok, update time. Sorry for the delay as we have had some rain & I managed to get 2cm of a rusty nail stuck in my foot that took some convincing & a slight anaesthetic to remove. Anyway, I'm making progress with the deck & as evident in the background of the pic, I took the advice to add extra bracing to the fence. This allowed me to choose slightly thinner cladding as I have effectively added an extra point of attachment. I will continue to update as I slowly progress.

Cheers,

Steve

[JacobZ]

Hi @Sunnycoast5,

I'm so sorry to hear of your injury, I hope you're on the mend and can get stuck back into your decking and fencing projects shortly.

It looks like things are coming along nicely and you have an extremely solid deck frame to move forward with and your fence looks about ready to clad.

Thank you for the update. I look forward to the next one.

Jacob

[Sunnycoast5]

Hi JacobZ,

Well, the fence is finished & I will attach pics. My issue now is laying the merbau decking. My problem is that I'm unsure about the correct way to fix the decking & keeping the decking screws all in one straight line. I'll try to explain & hopefully I'm missing something really obvious & easy to fix. I don't think that the outer joists are completely square. A bit of Qld rain over the last few weeks might have caused them to bow. My thoughts were to attach the first plank & then use spacers for each successive plank. I also have a decking template to assist with drilling the pilot holes for each screw. So my concern is that if the joist is not square, then the screws are going to follow the same bow aren't they? Then I thought, OK, a stringline might be the go here, but again, if I line up all of the planks, so that the ends are 4cm (for eg) over the edge of the joist, then it will still be inaccurate that way too won't it? Frustrating that I have done all of the hard work & I'm stumbling at the final hurdle. I may not have explained myself very well.

Cheers,

Steve

Yet to do timber inserts 

[JacobZ]

Hi @Sunnycoast5,

Nice work with the fence, that has come up nicely.

Your method for attaching your decking boards is spot-on and a chalk line is a fantastic way to keep your screws perfectly in line with each other. Just make sure you don't use red chalk as it can permanently stain things.

I understand what you are saying, but I'd need to see where and how exactly the joists are out of line to give you a tailored solution.

The Squareness of the frame could certainly be a factor that would throw your joists out of line. You can check your deck for square by using the 3-4-5 method. Have a look at How To Set Out A Deck, particularly Step 4, for some guidance on this method. If the whole deck is out of square, then rectifying the issue could be tricky. Not impossible, but tricky.

Seeing the joists will help me offer a more specific solution.  Can we get a photo of the joists that have bowed? If you take the photo as if you are sighting straight down the joist, I should be able to see the issue.

Some general options might be to add some blocking between the joists to straighten them. You may be able to let off some screws, knock the joists over and then re-screw them. Sometimes, a good wallop with a mallet or sledgehammer can also knock things back into square.

Let me know how you go checking for square and getting photos of the bowed joists. I imagine it won't be too difficult to fix.

Jacob

[Sunnycoast5]

Hi Jacob,

what you said made sense, so what i might do is add the blocking where it obviously needs it & see what difference that makes. Just waiting until it gets a little lower than 34 degrees outside.

Steve