Getting My Feet Wet

Well, hopefully not for much longer…

You see we have double decks on the front of our house- which sounds posh- but is mostly pointless because neither one is weatherproof.

This is how the porch looked last fall when I finally painted it and re-stained the floors. But there was still a little problem.

Yeah…all those cracks. Let’s just say I’ve been standing in the rain fumbling for keys one too many times my friends. It’s over.

So, I started researching solutions. Actually this is not the first time I’ve thought about solving this problem, but I guess I was never properly motivated to follow through before. Or, I didn’t find anything cheap enough. That was probably it. You know I’m cheap.

I’ve come across several commercial products for this application, but none of them met my cheaper-than-dirt requirement. After a little more digging, I decided to make up my own method using some corrugated metal or plastic and wood furring strips to create a slope. Off to Home Depot I went-straight to the roofing department.

I saw corrugated metal sheets, but across the aisle there was a plastic looking version that intrigued me because it was white. Below the sheets there were boxes of accessories, namely some brackets that caught my eye called DuoDeck. I could have sworn I heard the angels singing when I read the side of the box that said “Create A Dry Space Under Your Deck.”

Did they read my mind?

Apparently these brackets are meant to use with the Palruf corrugated PVC sheets to basically attach a roof to the underside of a deck. In order to create drainage, you hang the brackets progressively lower (1/4″ every 2 ft to be exact), and the water runs off the side instead of on your head.

Conveniently enough, also on the side of the DuoDeck bracket box was a list of other supplies: 2×2 strips (which were already on my radar for my homemade version) and special screws made by the same company (featuring sealing washers-genius).

So the bad news is that I lost the patent on my underdecking system. But, the good news is that someone already proved this would work.

I left with 2 sheets of 26″ x 12′ Palruf, a 50 pc box of screws, (3) 2x2x8s, and 12 DuoDeck brackets. Grand total: $80

I hate to leave you here, but this project is still in process and I don’t want to ruin the big reveal. I will definitely be back with a full tutorial though, as I didn’t find too many resources on the internet for installing this product. It’s not difficult, but there are some things we discovered on the way that would have been helpful to know or think about in advance. But if you have a deck like ours, I highly recommend this system-it’s by far the cheapest- yet effective- I’ve found.