Timber Advice & Project Stories
Practical guidance and real project notes from more than a decade of building decks, pergolas and outdoor timber structures in KZN.
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Balau Screening in Cotswold Downs – June 2013
We were called upon to quote on some balau screening in the Hillcrest, Durban area at a new development called Cotswold Downs. There were various aircons, heat pumps and gas bottles that needed to be clad or screened so as to conceal them. We used balau 30 x 40 struts or cleats attached to the…
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Wooden Stairs Built in Cowies Hill, Durban
These wooden stairs we built in were quite interesting because the client had a dining room which was raised about 600 from the patio outside. He wanted to be able to access the dining room through the new sliding doors. So we designed a small landing and some stairs to fit snugly in on one…
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Wooden Deck Built in Durban North – November 2011
This was a normal wooden deck in the normal cleat, beam and joist system with a cleat attached to the wall on the house side, joists running off that perpendicular to the house and a main beam supporting the joists. This deck was built in the days when I was still sing balau as a…
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Wooden Stair Case Build Durban
This wooden stair case build by The Wood Joint in Durban was a tricky one. The client was a committee member on the body corporate for a small block of flats in Durban. There were about 4 units in the block and the existing steel fire escape had rusted to a point where it was…
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Lutyens Bench – Outdoor Garden Furniture
This was a lovely job to have received. A client found me on the internet and came across some of the outdoor furniture I was making. Before I started building wooden decks I made furniture, largely outdoor picnic tables, Adirondack chairs and the like. I think I’ve mentioned it before in this blog, but it…
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Jacuzzi Cladding – Umhlanga, Durban
Jacuzzi cladding is a nice job to get hold of because it allows one to use up a lot of off cuts that would otherwise be useless in building say, a 20 square metre deck, as most of them are less than 1m in length. A lot of wood is wasted when erecting a wooden…
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Wooden Sundeck Built in Gillitts – April 2013
This was our second deck we built in Durban using CCA pine as a substructure. I can confirm that there is a substantial cost saving using pine as a substructure and provided it is CCA treated to the correct Hazard Level (H level), then it is guaranteed by the supplier and manufacturer against rot and…
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Wooden Sundeck, Toti, Durban
We built this wooden sundeck in Toti using CCA Pine, for the first time, as our substructure and decked it using balau deckboards. For a long time I have been using only balau as a substructure. But after some careful investigation I have accepted that a CCA treated pine substructure is as good if not…
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Wooden Sundeck Installed – Oriel Place, Bluff, Durban
This sundeck we installed in Durban was a relatively simple one to build. The client wanted to extend the area around the pool to create more space. It was a simple cleat, beam and joist system with a fascia beam on the front to attach the balustrade uprights to. There was one challenge in that…
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Pool Deck Built in Northdene, Durban
This pool deck we built in Northdene was in excess of 100 square metres. Pool decks can be quite difficult to measure as the pool is sometimes not square and the area to be covered is often an irregular shape. Care should be taken to measure it properly to avoid an underestimate of area for…