My new toy.

[pwdrive]

Oh no Col, how could you, a whole micro eco system destroyed. Those things are really powerfull I was thinking of one for breaking up the solidified sludge in the other half of my septic tank, then I thought best not (for obvious reasons)

Lawrence.

[Yorkie]

Never one to do anything by halves Colin!!

I can see the headlines now - 'Urban warrior on the loose with jet-wash - armed and dangerous, do not approach this man, even concrete slabs can't stop him'

[Radio Fixer]

Before you do the front get the neighbours to move their cars... particularly if there's any wind / breeze blowing.

I find it essential to treat the decking not just for preservation, lets face it, it mostly rots from undeneath like cars, but it makes it less slippery when wet. I use the stuff sold by Wickes... how it makes it less slippery I dont know... maybe it contains wax so its the surf board principle

My decking is grooved and I was hoping you were going to come up with the revolving bristle brush and trickle water feed Colin. I'm surprised someone doesnt make one. The pressure washer, fun though it is, puts loads of water underneath. Maybe it doesnt matter and up your end, with so much rain its how it normally lives. Down here it only sees that amount of water occasionally.

[Retired]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply Gary.

I've given up informing my neighbours of anything. When I sold the big Colchester lathe I informed the neighbours that a Land Rover hitched to a four wheel trailer would be on the street blocking just one of the two lanes off. We loaded the Colchester without problem and the buyer was securing it to the trailer with straps; the son of our neighbours directly across the street came home in his Corsa van and completely blocked the road on purpose; there wasn't a car on his drive and it holds three cars; shortly afterwards another neighbour drove on the street and obviously couldn't proceed so whilst she looked at me she sat in the car sounding the horn; we moved the trailer. I had done the decent thing and told the son to his face that the trailer was to arrive. I no longer bother with these two neighbours.

The bristle brush idea is good Gary but I like plenty of water to flush the dirt and debris away; I doubt giving the decking a good soaking will do any damage because the water won't penetrate into the timber far as it is pressure treated which fully seals the grain; within half an hour of finishing pressure washing the top surface of the decking was virtually dry. The underside would take a while longer.

Good decision Lawrence not to blast the contents of a septic tank; you could always hire a deep sea divers suit though.

Thanks David; you know me too well. Yes once I get stuck into something I don't quit easily and this pressure washing is great fun.

It was overcast here this morning with a breeze and to the rear of the bungalow it felt cold. I really wanted to finish the roof off on a full day but today's forecast was good. I couldn't make a start before dinner time but I did get everything set up. After dinner I was on the roof and the sun came out making it a lovely warm afternoon; the breeze although only light kept giving me a shower of dirty water. I expected finishing around 7 o'clock tonight but by 5 o'clock I had completed pressure washing the roof and even tidied up below including washing the gutters and paintwork.I'm pleased the job is done and what a difference this pressure washer has made to the appearance of our bungalow. All the paths; walls and roof look like new. The problem now is that I've run out of things to pressure wash. Ah well; I've a couple of lathes wanting a lot of TLC so I won't be bored.

Kind regards, Col.

[pwdrive]

Decking normally comes already treated when you buy it, however, what treated is depends, it could be treated by anything varying from coloured dye to high retention tanalizing which is pressure treated to a British Standard, or at least it should be...buyer beware...some timber is treated using what is called the Vac Vac process, that used to use solvents for the treatment and is commonly used for treating timber in manufactured windows etc, not really suitable for ground contact timber, what we call a full Tanalizing process is done with water mixed with various chemicals/salts etc it used to be called CCA as the ingredients were copper/chrome/arsnic, that may have been superceded by now, never the less "Tanalized" timber is good for 25-30 years or longer if the treatment was done correctly and the right species of timber is used, the best timber for Tanalizing is the sapwood of Scots Pine preferably home grown.
If you have access to a local home grown sawmill then you might get a chance to pick the species you are after.
Be warned though, just because the timber looks olive green or brown it does not mean that it has been treated to British Standards, some suppliers use the trick of putting in the pressure tank just long enough for it to take on the colour of the fluid or even worse in an open dipping tank with dye in it, technically it's been "treated" but with what...not good. If you can get your decking from a home grown sawmill you can specify for the timber to be treated twice or to marine standard, this gives in effect double salt retention, pressure treating should be available for around £40/£50 a cubic meter, that's a lot of timber. The timber used must be rot free before it's treated. Decking should not have ground conact, it is important to have a good free flow of air underneath it, any timber support posts should be a minimum of 100 x 100 mm dimension or 150 x 150 mm if you want it to really last.

Hope this is of use to someone.

Lawrence

[Radio Fixer]

Thats very informative Lawrence. A word of praise for Wickes which I where I usually go for timber. There treatment seems very effective as I the decking is about 20 years old now and still going strong. The bearers were only about 2" x 2" and thats the weak point I guess. I would have liked to have used something heavier but it would have brought the top up so doors wouldnt have opened. Guess I could have cut all the bottoms off as Harold Steptoe would have done... marvelous that programme where he installed central heating.

The advantage of Wickes to me, apart from the book quoting the BS no's, is being able to go through all the lengths and select the best ones.

Well Colin in a couple of weeks pressure washing will be off the agenda with the hose pipe ban... shall I get out and do the deck before then? or shall I become an old scrubber? Now if I do a couple of planks a day it will only take me a month or so... and execise is good for you so they say.

cheers Gary

[Retired]

Hi,

Many thanks for the useful information Lawrence. When I bought the timber for our decking I bought it Tanalized. I used galvanized 3" long nails to secure the boards and I was surprised just how hard the timber was; it was so dense that occasionally the nails just curled up; the boards are 100mm x 32mm supported by 125mm x 50mm joists and to the front are on 100mm x 100mm posts making it a substantial decking. It's been in use many years and is still like new. Tanalizing drives the moisture from the pores of the wood leaving them filled with preservative; wood is in effect like lots of very thin straws that lap up moisture but tanalizing prevents this from happening. I did a bit of reading on the subject when I bought the materials.

I'm interested in your recommendation of Wickes decking treatment Gary and ask if you could please expand on the subject a bit more; what actually is the treatment you use and what colours is it available in? The last treatment I bought was Ronseal from Screwfix and bought it to treat fencing; I must say I'm not too impressed with it. One coat was supposed to be sufficient but I gave two or more coats; the top edges are now bare in places so I'm looking for something much better; price isn't a problem because after all price of materials is only a part of the story; I don't like wasting time applying products that just don't work which in effect make the cheaper products a lot more expensive long term. I save a lot of money doing jobs myself so never skimp on quality.

A couple of planks a day Gary; C'mon; I bet once you start pressure washing you won't want to stop; go for it.

I heard about the hosepipe ban yesterday Gary and how insulting is this. For a small island surrounded by water and the terrible floods over previous years you would think we would never ever be short of water. I can guarantee when I apply gloss paint to the exterior of our bungalow we are never short of water!!

After dinner I'll be out cleaning the gutters to finish the job off. Pressure washing has made a tremendous difference and the money spent buying the Nilfisk has been worth every penny. Pressure washing is certainly more entertaining than watching the rubbish put out on TV these days. It's quite dull here at the moment so perhaps I can take better pictures.

Kind regards, Col.

[AlanBeckett]

Hosepipe ban? What hosepipe ban?
http://www.south-staffs-water.co.uk/comm...ources.asp
Alan

[pwdrive]

That's ok, I was in the home grown timber game for a number of years, yes it's the sap wood which takes up the Tanalizing fluid, the heart wood does not take anything up at all, it is vertualy impenertrable, the old telegraph and electricity pole used to be run through an incissor machine which penetrated the sap wood and part way into the heartwood in preperation for the hot and cold creoste process, that's why those poles last so long. If you take a peice of tanalized heartwood you will notice that the ends are treated, if you cut 12 mm off the end you will still see some treatment, cut 150 to 300 mm off and you won't see much at all except for any that has found its way in by way of shrinkage cracks/shakes etc. Try to avoid boards cut from the very heart of the tree as these tend to twist and shake more and the timber is inherently weak, some people think that the very center of the tree is the best timber...it's not, this cut of timber is called boxed heart, if the dimension is 100 x 100 or larger then it will suffer from shrinkage cracks but on stuff this size the strength should not be affected to much. I am a great believer in the use of homegrown timber, you can't really beat clear homegrown Larch for timber gates, it is also good for decking but it splits at the end if you don't pre drill the nail holes or pre drill and countersink if using screws, 1st butt Douglas Fir is also a supurb and strong timber, if it is well seasoned you would have a job driving 6" nails into large dimension stuff as for pulling them out...forget it.
Homegrown Scots pine is also an excellent timber, it can be very resinous, homegrown Sitka Spruce (which is what I grow) has about the best strength to wieght ratio, there are other spiecies but I won't bore you.

Lawrence.

[Paula A]

Col

Last time we were loading and somebody turned up and started blowing their horn at us we calmly downed tools and walked away. I wonder how many of these ignorant people know that it is an offence under the road traffic act to sound the horn in a stationary vehicle

You are erfectly within your rights to block the road while loading or unloading, and checking properly it's only pedestrians and the post office who actually have right of way on the roads, not any numpty in a car (typical militant anarchist like me knows their rights