I had a small wooden terrace, around 35 m², which was quite pretty when I bought the house: it contributed to my buying crush, moreover. But over the years, having been made of poor quality fir, with amateur know-how, the boards warped, lost their fixings, rotted in certain places… In short, my terrace had become ugly and dangerous. because of the blades which lifted under the effect of the heat or its risk of falling due to the humidity as soon as it rained.
Preparing the “land”
My decision to redo my terrace was made when I was offered to take charge of the site (retired in-laws are good!): they would come together over a long weekend. From there, I made a retro planning:
- dismantling of the old terrace,
- cleaning of the floor and walls, grinding of the concrete block joints, cement to plug the few small holes,
- plaster to coat the walls,
- rental of a utility vehicle to take the old terrace to the recycling center (in the “everything” because the wood is treated: it therefore has no place in the “wood” dumpster) and to go and buy the wooden slats chocolate composite that I had chosen, taking advantage of a seasonal promotion!
The two of us needed a few hours and a few weekends to prepare the ground, not to mention that we took the opportunity to remove an entire bamboo plantation with extremely invasive roots, which we replaced with more regional species. : maple, hornbeam, hazel.
The purchase of materials
To buy the materials, I simply trusted my “retired workers” who were not on their first terrace: I went to Leroy Merlin to buy the essentials (joists, composite wood boards, fixing clips ) and at Brico-Dépôt to provide me with pedestals for joists, a 4 m mason’s rule (to calculate the slope for good water drainage!). “Ma Carte Maison” by Leroy Merlin gave me a 5% welcome discount, and as I have now reached the threshold of 1000 accumulated points, I am entitled to a 10% loyalty discount. .but I don’t think I will do any major work again any time soon: it’s nerd (or commercial) this thing!!
The construction site
It took almost 3 days for the two friends to complete their achievement. Here are the points that I noted that should not be overlooked or checked: the slope of the screed (the steeper it is, the more it complicates things), the steps with risers and stair nosing to be done with precision, do not do the fittings in line
otherwise the eye can only see these lines so cut the boards so that the board connections are random, cutouts for gutters and other obstacles to get around… And above all leave a few millimeters at the end of each plank alignment to allow the boards to expand without deforming.
At the end of this “mechanical game”, all we had to do was fix the blades on the edges of the low wall: we opted for gluing with very strong special glue rather than screws which would not have very pretty.
A good sweep, the storage of tools, and we reinstalled the flower pots, the garden table, the chairs, the deckchair… to drink the champagne!