- Q.I’m building a
roofed porch with tongue-and-groove fir decking in New
England. The boards will be primed and painted on all
sides before installation. The joists run perpendicular
to the building, and I’d like to install the
flooring parallel to the long dimension of the porch.
Does the orientation of the porch boards
matter?
A.John Leeke, a
preservation consultant from Portland, Maine,
responds: The drainage off the deck will
definitely be better if the boards run from the
house down the slope toward the edge of the porch.
I usually slope my porch decks about 1/4 or 3/8
inch per foot. I’ve found that 1/8 inch
per foot is not enough to get the water moving off
the porch.
If you are concerned about end checks developing
in the exposed end grain of the deck boards, I
suggest treating the end grain of the boards with
penetrating epoxy consolidant before any other
finish is applied. This seals the end grain,
limiting the movement of water in and out and
minimizing checks.