whats your opinion on this deck and how its built?

If you are worried about spiders - why don't you pay for pest control. They come and spray around your house and you won't shouldn't see spiders, bugs, etc for up to 12 months after. I wouldn't be touching the decking personally, looks great. If you rip it up you'd need to replace it with something (paving).

looks to be treated pine - so termites etc really won't prefer to eat it, although reputedly they may use it to get to 'better' wood.

if you are concerned about them travelling over the treated pine, no reason why you could not create a gap between the deck & the house, e.g. even a 20-30mm gap would suffice, you wouldn't notice it when you step over, shouldn't fill up with dirt etc.

regardless, termites etc need a reliable water source. if they have none nearby, they won't be going for your house anyway unless you have a water leak / dripping tap / plumbing that leaks or pipes/hoses outside that leak or an immediate neighbor with the same.
if you had any of the above, deck or no deck, i think that you'd be under risk.

Looks pretty good to me.
I'd give it a fresh coat of oil, sit back with a beer and enjoy it!

have the boards been flipped recently? I just notice the lighter marks on it which look like where the boards sat on joists.

Yeah, the big issue here is termite detection. Never mind the deck being eaten up, but the fact that the deck appears to be butting up to your brick walls means you can't see the termites getting a free lunch by entering through your weep holes. Councils normally specify a minimum gap between the deck and the wall, something in the order of what President mentioned. I had a mate who built his deck hard against his house and had to take it apart and move it out after the council inspector came around to have a look.

Originally Posted by UteMad

Its the packer marks from when they cooked it in the oven.. how many customers have accused me of bringing second hand deck... my comment is the same " wheres the bl##dy nail holes if its second hand "

cheers utemad

had the same Q and gave a similar answer!

It'll be fine - sit back and enjoy the deck.

ok cool, it might stay with a coat of oil or something. and yeah i was wondering about those marks in the wood as well.

[QUOTE=UteMad;756063]Its the packer marks from when they cooked it in the oven.. how many customers have accused me of bringing second hand deck... my comment is the same " wheres the bl##dy nail holes if its second hand "


I'm actually one of those weird guys that really like 2nd hand timber. Do those marks must blend back into the surrounding wood colour in time? I hadn't seen them before in new pine decking.