The pool deck that I removed on Memorial Day was 20-ft
x. 12-ft and had four sections. Each of the 3 larger sections contained 10 to 15 planks and had several sections of safety rail. The fourth section was smaller and
contained less decking, but sat above an electrical conduit.
For all four
sections, the floor joists and rim joists were 2 x 6s. The uprights underneath
the deck and the posts that held the safety railings were 4 x 4s.
Goodbye, Railing
First, I used my reciprocating saw to cut every other vertical
support for the safety railing. The intervening 4 x 4s had base plates, so I
just left them alone for the time being. Next, I used the hooked end of the pry
bar to pound out the flimsy, horizontal boards that connected sections of
railing. With these links severed, the 4 x 4s that I had cut no longer had
anything (however flimsy) to hold them in place.
Removing the cut supports was easy. Ridding the deck of the
remaining 4 x 4s (the ones with base plates) took more effort. Still, by simply
rocking these 4 x 4s back and forth, I was able to make a mockery of what the
deck builder had so carefully toe-nailed into place.
With the safety railing dismantled, I looked at my feet. My work on the first section (photo above) might be called "How
Not to Remove Decking". If you've ever looked at decking before (for example,
if you've ever been really bored at a pool party), you may have noticed that
each board contains four or five rows of nails. There are two knurled nails per
row, and these rows are evenly spaced.
How Not to Remove
Decking
When I removed the decking from the first section, I made
the mistake of working row-by-row instead of board-by-board. In other words, I
loosened all of the nails in Row 1 for Boards 1 – 10. Then I used the pry bar
to attack all of Row 2 (across the boards) before turning my attention to Row
3. By the time I reached Row 4, the one closest to the pool, I was stumbling
across loosened planks. Check out my footing in the picture above!
Unfortunately, some of these boards had dry rot. Others,
like the one I stepped on as I pulled a nail from Row 4, had a large knot. Not
surprisingly, this board broke and I fell several feet to the ground below (foolishness not shown).
Luckily, I landed on my feet before banging into one of the floor joists, which
held me upright.
I'm not sure how I managed to avoid tearing my flesh on an
exposed nail like the ones you can see in the picture below , but the pool cover wasn't so lucky. When I fell through the deck,
the pry bar flew from my hands and into the air before putting a hole in the
pool cover. The hooked end kept the bar from falling to the bottom, however, so I won't need to follow this blog entry with one called DIY Pool
Patching.
Jousting with Joists
 When I removed the decking from the other sections, I (wisely)
worked board-by-board instead of row-by-row. Once a section of decking was
gone, I made cuts on the near end of each floor joist. Next, I cut away the longitudinal rim joists so that the cut floor joists dangled in mid-air. Much as
I'd done with the safety-rail supports, I then rocked the joists to loosen them
from the remaining nails in their joist hangers at the far end.
Grabbing a joist, I raised it
skyward and gave it a twist or two. Nails that proved troublesome fell victim
to the pry bar that had punctured my pool cover.
My sledgehammer worked well,
too.
Use Conduit Sense
By removing the supports without hassling with deck
hardware, I was able to complete this demolition project in about 5 hours. The
last section of the deck was the smallest, but took a long time. You see, there
was this electrical conduit (photo at right, below) that stuck up out of the
ground. Flattening it would have been painful, and - for now obvious reasons -
I try to avoid truly dangerous DIY.
Editor's Note: Click here for Part 1.
| 
Re: DIY Deck Removal (Part 2)
