Re-Flooring An Old Deck Using Used Decking. Free Lumber

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Greetings ~

Once upon a time, there was a guy who had a deck floor that was rotting out. The frame was in excellent condition and solid as a rock. However, the floor had had indoor-outdoor carpet on it for well over 20-years and that held the rain water and inturn, it had rotted the floor boards. That guy was me.

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Hello! I'm Mr. Ed

Blog Created: 9-16-2022

Last Updated: 9-24-2022

I noticed one day that there was weak spots in the deck and when I pulled the carpet back, I found rotting here and there. Great! This was a 12x12 foot deck and I knew that, with today's lumber prices, this job would cost me a ton of cash. But then, something happened. My neighbor was having a new deck put on her house. The old wooden flooring was still in great shape but she wanted the new plastic flooring and rails because they were no maintenance. She was only having the floor and railings done as her framing was also in very good condition. So I talked to her and she told me to take the old flooring once it was pulled off. That would save her the cost of a dumpster.

The rot was peeking out from the carpet.

Our neighbor had a new "plastic" deck installed.

I took my lawn tractor and it's trailer and made five trips to haul the lumber home. Lucky for me, she lived right behind us on the next street so all I had to do was drive across our two yards.

Once the wood was home, I piled it beside the garage and then spent a week de-nailing it all. All the nails were rusted and had to be pulled out. Once that was done, i stacked the useable boards on the picnic table out back. About a quarter of the wood had to be scrapped as it was either split or broken or rotted also. But I got a good amount of useable boards out of it.

De-nailing it all was the hardest part of the whole job. The nails were rusty and some were hard to get out.

Rusty nails.

It took a little over a week to de-nail it all.

Once the nails were out, I stacked the useable boards on the picnic table.

I decided to take up a few of the really bad boards on the deck but would lay the "new" boards right down on top of the old ones. This would steady up the floor even more. Since the boards were thin enough, it would not raise the floor level too much at all. So it would work.

Once we pulled the carpet up, the true condition of the old deck came to light. Not good!

Our son came to help and we got started one sunny day. I would not be using the railings, only the flooring. So this shouldn't take very long. I got the tools ready. All I needed was my nail gun, air compressor, a couple of hammers, a square, jig saw and my circular saw plus saw horses. And the most important tool...a pencil. We were ready!

We gathered up the tools and saw horses and got to workin'.

It took a day to cut and lay the flooring. We got eight boards from the end when we ran out of wood. All the rest were short pieces and I didn't want to fill in with those. So the next day we drove to Lowe's and I bought eight deck boards to finish the job. By the way, I was told that Lowe's no longer allow a military discount on lumber. That sucks! But the boards cost me a total of $53.00. So I figured that the new decking cost $53.00 which isn't bad at all.

We had to buy eight boards at Lowe's to finish the job.

Once the entire deck is painted, it will all blend in.

We still need to pressure wash the whole deck and either paint it or whatever. But it's as solid as a rock and does look pretty good. The only problem was during the job, I did manage to fall through the old flooring and was laid up for around a week and a half with a really bad sprained shoulder. I went and had X-rays done and was alright. I just had to have my arm in a sling for awhile.

I stepped on this spot. It looked okay.

As it turned out,it wasn't okay after all and i found myself under the deck.

In an arm sling and a little over a week later, I was up and kickin" once again. I just don't kick as high as I used to.

All in all, the floor turned out well. The old railing that came from the neighbor I plan to use somewhere else later on. The old pieces of wood will be good fire starters in the firepit. We hope that this decking will last, at least, another ten years.

So, if you get the chance to pick up a load of free decking and need to replace your old flooring, do it! We got it at the perfect time. And there are many short pieces that I can use around the house and yard on other projects. So this was a win-win situation. I figured that the cost, had I had to buy the wood would have cost me around $2,500. So getting the free decking was a really good opportunity. Except for the shoulder. That hurt!

Once we get it pressure washed and painted, I will add those pictures here. Thanks for checking it out.

Update: 9-21-2022 ~

Today I got the pressure washer out and cleaned the deck. While I was doing that, I also cleaned the siding on the house.

We're always getting the green crap on the siding. I guess it comes from the trees being so close to the house.

The floor washed up pretty good. The pressure washer took off a lot of the old paint.

I have the paint for the deck. However, we may wait until next spring to paint it as we are approaching winter and the weather will probably screw it up somewhat.