Deck replacement, a learn me thread

This is the main entrance to my house. 20ish foot long ramp, to a 5x5 deck, to the steps. 

It's not secured very well, if at all, to the ground or anything else. A lot, well more than half, of the boards are extremely soft and bouncy, and over the winter we really thought one of us was going to fall through. A lot of the nails (yes nails) holding it together liked to pop up during the winter while walking on it. 

So I need to start getting ideas on replacing it either this year or next. 

I want to keep the ramp. In fact, I'd like to build a ramp on the other side as well. I wanted to take it the whole way to the yard that's up there but there's a chimney in the way. 

I think pouring it is out of the question. I'd really like to do corrugated metal, but new would be ridiculously expensive and waiting for enough drops could take years. 

So that leaves me with wood or trex, unless there are other materials available I'm unaware of.

It's currently painted wood. What I've seen where the paint has worn off and parts have rotted, its regular wood. 

What should I be looking at? Regular pine, pressure treated, cedar, redwood? Pony up the extra for trex?

It needs to be able to handle sustained freezing and below freezing temperatures, as well as days above 100F. Somehow someway I want to add a good anti skid, because currently a little rain turns the whole thing into a sheet of ice even in the summer. 

Is there a best bang for the buck material, or maybe a modern (not latex exterior paint) coating for cheaper material I could put on that would last 5-10+ years?

Since wood is still stupid, composite isn't that much more now. a 1x6x16 stick of veranda is 28$ here, and a  5/4X6X16 is 24$ for PT. for the decking surface, I would absolutely use that. The rest pressure treated. absolutely nothing on this should be regular pine. 

Currently building a 30' wheelchair ramp for a customer.  (OBTW, don't drink and drive)  I reread all ADA specs to make sure I was current.

I'm looking at that snow and immediately thinking slip&fall.   Ramp really should be 1 foot long for each inch of drop.   

I built one recently out of all PT 5/4 deck boards.  Customer wanted it stained.  It turned out to be a wee bit slippery when wet.  I went back and added sharks teeth to another layer of stain to be safe.

The plastic decking can also be slippery when wet.   

YMMV

Our composite has a "wood grain" in it that makes it not horrible compared to the flat top versions. Agreed on pricing vs regular deck boards, the non-Trex options are pretty affordable and even the base Trex isn't so bad anymore. 

Big thing for you will be good footers below frost depth, all ground contact PT down low and regular PT up high. 

PT framing and Trex deck boards.  That's the ticket.

Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter)

Big thing for you will be good footers below frost depth, all ground contact PT down low and regular PT up high. 

I agree. I feel like that's where most of my labor is going to be, because right now there are 4x4 stubs sitting on pavers or directly on the gravel. 

I'm already planning to run a modified French drain when the deck is removed, and bury a plastic skeleton for any future homeowners to find, so digging deep to cement in the supports will just come naturally.

With the Trex decking boards, will they take a coating? Like epoxy with sand or aquarium gravel? Or are they just good enough  textured as they come to help aid traction?

When I built mine I hit some unmarked drain pipe to who-knows-what when I dug for my footers. Make sure you think about some options once you get down there as far as modifying the plan. I ended up adding a not-needed extra support just to bridge where that stupid @#$)(* pipe was.

That area looks pretty well shaded but I still want to throw this out there.  Composite decking gets CRAZY hot in the sun.  I always thought it was a really neat product until I went over to a friends' pool.  In the sun the decking was over 185 degrees and would burn you if you walked on it barefoot.  Add in the slippery when wet factor and I'm kinda surprised they were ever allowed to well the stuff.

Use pressure treated, it'll last for a couple of decades.

Pressure treated for sure, I've never liked the plastic decking. It still swells around the fasteners after getting wet. It gets hot. It warps. It's softer (more flexible) than timber so it feels kinda cheap even when it's new.

I have heard that setting wood posts in concrete is not recommended due to rot. The suggestion I saw was to set them in crushed gravel. I just did a small garden fence (about 50' of fence, on three planes) using that technique and like it.

My dad's currently redoing their deck in Trex. 

In reply to dculberson :

I don't understand how gravel would help with rot. I would expect less moisture with concrete than with gravel. 

In reply to dculberson :

On something structural I use J-bolts in the footer and then post brackets to join the 4x4 to the footer without having the PT in direct contact with the concrete. 

When I did the chicken coop and fencing I put the post in the ground and poured around them. I figured even with the concrete in contact the post will outlast the desire to keep chickens.

lnlogauge said:

In reply to dculberson :

I don't understand how gravel would help with rot. I would expect less moisture with concrete than with gravel. 

Concrete is hydroscopic and will retain any moisture it can.

Gravel allows the water to drain away if the ground isn't saturated already

Precisely. Gravel drains, concrete doesn't.

Having said that, I'd still put it in concrete for stability, the only thing I'd do in gravel is like....fence posts for small animal enclosures.

Also, I'd still get a bid on concrete just because wood is stupidly expensive right now. You might be surprised at the price difference.

But, and I can't stress this enough, do not use deicer on it in winter. Use sand instead, anything that melts ice whether it's thermally or chemically, attacks the concrete too

We were required by the town to use a standoff between the concrete pilings and the PT 6x6 supports. I forget what they're called but they're very common.

Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter) said:

We were required by the town to use a standoff between the concrete pilings and the PT 6x6 supports. I forget what they're called but they're very common.

One of these?