Decking...Hammer or Nail Gun

[Johnnyy Johnson]

Which is the better choice? I am replacing all boards on a 25 x 15 deck. I am thinking get a few nails in each board then rent a NG to finish it up.Would 3.5 inch nails work with 5/4 boards? Thanks...JJ

[Nike Nihiser]

Screws are a better choice, galvanized or special decking screws. If you use nails use galvanized. I assume you are using PT wood. It will eat regular nails or screws.

[Shane Copps]

+1 on the screws- Nails will back out within a short time.

[Mike Cutler]

Between those two choices I'd go with a nail gun. There's a lot nails in a 25x15 deck.
However, I too would do screws. You can really tighten a deck up with screws, and should you need to remove a board later, it's a whole lot easier.

[Jason Roehl]

I've never walked on a nailed deck of any age that didn't squeak and have nails sticking up all over the place. In fact, when I re-stain such a deck, I usually have to spend an hour or so checking every nail and pounding them back in. Three-inch screws are the way to go if you're screwing from the top. Shorter screws can be used if you're using a hidden fastening system.

[Johnnyy Johnson]

Anyone tried Ballistic Nail Screws? I saw them on YouTube. Shoot in with NG and can be removed like a screw. Don't know if PT lumber would eat them.

[Tom M King]

Deckmate "star drive" screws sold in Home Depot, and an 18v impact driver. Get the kind of TORX T25 bit that snaps in the end of the impact driver, and don't bother with the little bit that comes in the box of screws. With 16" OC joists, put two screws in each end, and alternate the rest from one side to the other on alternating joists. I've done my own tests of doing it this way, and 5/4 treated decking boards held down like this crack much less over the years than ones with two fasteners in every joist.

We have a dock with a 32 foot square deck-16' square basket weave pattern- that I built in 1991 like this, not counting all the others. A couple of years ago, we turned all the boards over on the dock, and only had to replace two boards.

Screw the ends in place with the spacing you want. Put a few screws in the straight decking boards, and then go back and wedge the bowed ones off the straight ones. This saves more time than it seems like it would.

Nailgun nails will back out over time, even though they may hold fine for the first five or six years.

I've been doing this for a living for 41 years....www.HistoricHousePreservation.com

[Peter Quinn]

Screws are the only option worth considering for face application. Nails are terrible and don't stay put even in the short term. For the extra labor you get a lot more deck quality, cut corners elsewhere.

[Jason Roehl]

Also, there are a couple ways to speed up screwing down the deck boards. One is to get a strip-fed screw gun or drill attachment that allows you to stand up and drive screws. Another is a change in methodology. I saw an older (and old-fashioned to a fault) builder do this: he would use a hammer to start a bunch of screws so they were driven enough to stay standing vertical, then come back and drive them with a drill-driver (I'd use an impact driver--I don't think he had one).

[Matt Day]

If i were doing a deck project I'd use it as an excuse to buy an automatic screw gun, or at least rent one.

[Tom M King]

I agree, a 16oz. screwdriver is the fastest screw starter. I use the self-feeders for subflooring, but don't like the screws for a deck that you will at some point have to get the screws back out. One of the beauties of the "star drive" is that they are as easy to get back out as they are to put in. The reason we had to replace a couple of boards on the previously mentioned dock was because the screws were square drive originally, and some of the boards had to be pulled up over the screws, splitting a couple of them.

[Earl McLain]

Interesting idea. Is this the right logic? One screw per joist allows the wood to move, which in turn reduces the damage from wood trying to move while it's screwed down tight?? I gotta say i like using half as many screw from both labor and cost sides of the equation.

earl

[Tom M King]

That was my idea a couple of decades ago, and it looks like it worked out pretty good. If you keep the screws in phase on each joist, it looks good. Get out of phase, and it doesn't look so good. Sometimes one board might need three in a row on one side if that side looks like it wants to lift. I've done them like that since at least 1991. I just remember building that dock that year, and we flipped the boards a couple of years ago. It's pretty amazing how good the bottoms of those boards looked after over 20 years. There were discolored lines where the joists were, but I screened it with my floor buffer, and evened it all out.

[Jim Becker]

Screws. Nails do not stay put.

[Myk Rian]

T-25 head screws. I bought GRK at HoPo. Buy a good bit, and magnetize it. Stick the screw to the bit, jamb the screw point to the wood, and let it fly. No need to hammer them first.
I just did 3 bedrooms like that before we put the carpet down. It went pretty quick doing 400 screws.