Wooden Flooring Durban

Posted on March 8, 2015 by Garrick Dunstan

Early plank style flooring

Many years ago, as late as 1625, most European houses did not have a wooden floor. Instead they had a beaten earth floor which of course created problems with water and dust, as you can imagine. Wooden floors were reserved for wealthier people and in those days consisted of joists with planks of elm or oak up to 600mm wide.

During the baroque era of 1625 – 1714, wooden floors became more elegant and included French parquetry and marquetry patterns which were made from hand cut pieces of hardwood laid in patterns of differing colours. They were then hand scraped, scrubbed with sand and polished. These of course were also reserved for the elite in society.

During 1607 – 1780 the North Americans started installing wooden floors due to an abundance of wood. These floors were generally not polished.

French parquet style flooring

By the early 19^th century, tongue and groove methods started to be applied by the wealthier clients but the random width plank system, face nailed to the joists, remained more common in modest homes. It was also during these times, due to the advent of tongue and groove, that floors could be sanded and levelled and sealed using shellac. Shellac was all that was really available to carpenters to seal wood in those days. It is derived from insect secretions and after being scraped from the bark of trees and processed, exists in solid form. When mixed with alcohol, it becomes liquid and can be applied. It dries very quickly. As there were no modern tools to perform these tasks it was very labour intensive and only the elite could afford this new technology.

The American Victorian Era of 1840 – 1910 saw mass production of wooden floors and consisted largely of “wood carpeting” which were roughly 35mm x 7mm strips glued to a heavy cotton backing made of canvas. They came in rolls of about 1m wide and were installed by tacking down each board every 300mm or so. Nails were set below the surface and filled, sanded by hand and varnished largely with slow curing tung oils from China. This was not that durable in itself so floors were hot waxed and buffed to a shine with a floor brush. All by hand. I know what a job it can be to level a floor using tongue a groove boards with a large grinder or floor sander. I can only imagine the sweat and tears that went into producing a top quality floor in those days.

Modern day tongue and groove flooring

By the Edwardian era (1901 – 1914) tongue and groove flooring was the popular choice for domestic flooring. By the 1920’s and 1930’s wooden flooring was in competition with linoleum and cork floors which offered less maintenance. With the addition of alkyd resin, curing time and durability of finishes improved and emphasis was placed on hard solid durable floors. In the 30’s polyurethane was the choice for a no wax finish for floors which allowed wood to play a prominent role through the modern era of the 20’s to the 50’s. Wall to wall carpeting was still terribly expensive and a lot more expensive than wood.

With the housing boom at the end of World War II, came doom for the wooden flooring industry. Because the broadloom (wide and long carpets) cost could be included in the loan for veterans, solid wood floors were very quickly covered up with more expensive, and therefore more sought after, wall to wall carpets. So from the 50’s to about the 80’s hardwood flooring companies struggled to survive and had to adapt my installing carpets. Also ply wood was commonly used then below the carpets. As a result of this the labour paid to install floors decreased and of course the quality dropped as labour struggled to lay more flooring in a day just to survive. This resulted in poor quality floors being laid which made them unpopular. Parquet was then branded as cheap and common.

As we move along in time, and wooden flooring becomes more expensive than other types of flooring, because wood itself is becoming scarce, solid hardwood flooring starts, to my joy, becoming more popular and associated with the more elite end of society. Carpets are being ripped up to find Swiss parquet and parquet blocks, largely of teak which are being restored to their former beauty. A lot of new floors are being laid in solid hardwood too and are preferred over carpets or tiles. Tiles and carpets have had their day. Solid hardwood reigns, for now, but watch this space because the wheel turns and in a few decades I suppose wooden floors will lose their popularity as do all things with time.

For a quote on your solid hardwood flooring needs please contact us on 082 496 5444 or use the contact us form on this page.

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DIY Timber Decking in Durban

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Garrick Dunstan

Although we are professional installers of timber decks in Durban, we also offer a DIY service whereby we will supply the materials required to build your own wooden deck. We will also provide a brief outline of what is required and how to go about installing it.

As an introduction to this service I will offer some basic guidelines of how to set about building a wooden deck.

The most cost-effective method is to use an H3 and H4 CCA Treated substructure and balau deck boards. H3 timber is guaranteed, by the supplier, for 50 years and H4 is guaranteed for 30 years. This is of course subject to certain conditions that need to be fulfilled such as sealing cut ends with an approved end sealer and using H3 and H4 where they should be used. You can see a list of H classifications on www.sawpa.co.za. Provided the correct H level of timber is used in the correct application your deck will probably out live you.

First few rows of balau deck boards down

Substructure construction will vary depending on the height of the deck and some other criteria, but basically you will be aiming to install joists at about 450mm to 500mm centres. This will vary depending on the total length you need to install joists over. The joists are generally built using 38 x 114 S5 H3 timber. S5 is minimum SABS structural grade timber and refers to the number of knots per square metre that are present in the wood. H3 is the level to which it is treated at the treatment plant. H3 is suitable for outdoors. If you are placing timber in the ground, or in constant contact with wet soil, it should be treated to a minimum of H4.

Should you require main beams to support your joist structure you will typically use a 50 x 228 H4 beam and you can use 76 x 76 H4 treated square posts to support these beams. Your beams will be installed at 3m centres. If the structure is higher than about 2m I would suggest using gum poles to support it as they are harder and stronger. Again use H4 CCA Treated as they will be placed in the ground.

It is best to use balau deck boards as they are a lot more stable than pine and will not bow and cup as easily as pine. I use the 19 x 68mm reeded deck board as they are relatively inexpensive in comparison to the 19 x 90 deck board. They need to be reeded and the grooved side must face down in order to allow water trapped between the bottom of the deck board and the joist to escape, thus preventing premature failure due to rot. One can also use other timbers such as Massaranduba and Garappa, but they are more expensive. Balau is fine for coastal regions. Garappa and Massaranduba work well in the Highveld where the temperatures range from very cold to very hot.

Deck boards should be spaced with a 5mm gap between them in order to allow water on the surface of the deck to drain away quickly.

For a free no obligation quote on timber supply or supply and install for your decking needs, please contact us on 082 496 5444, or use the contact us form below.

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Hardwood Flooring Companies in Durban

Posted on February 11, 2015 by Garrick Dunstan

Hardwood flooring is becoming very popular again in modern-day home building. There is a separate article on this blog about the history of hardwood floors so I won’t write much about that here. This article is intended to share some info I have gained about hardwood floors and how to ensure that you make the right decisions when choosing your hardwood floor.

There are a number of hardwood flooring specialist companies in Durban to choose from when installing hardwood floors in your home. A few important points to consider when choosing a hardwood flooring company is their track record and their knowledge of wood, its characteristics and how it behaves.

There are broadly speaking two ways to install a hardwood floor. It will either be suspended on battens or joists, or be glued to the substrate which is normally concrete.

Suspended Floors vs. Glue Down Floor Boards

Suspended or sprung floors are exactly that. They are floor boards that are fixed to joists or battens with a cavity between the bottom of the floor board and the substrate. They are useful when there is no substrate or the substrate is below the desired height of the floor and filling with concrete is not an option due to cost. One can then simply run beams and joists, or battens if the height to be gained is not that great, at specified centres and then attach floor boards to the joists. The distance between joists will be determined by the type of wood being used as floor boards and its density and hardness. They will generally be between 400mm and 500mm. Anything less is a waste of wood and anything more may result in the floor boards being “spongy” and “bouncing” with slight movement up and down. Despite being annoying when walked on, this will also put strain on all joints and failure of the hardwood floor may be premature.

This substructure, or substrate, must be completely flat and level on the top in order to get a flat and level floor. Shimming and notching are practices used in suspended floors to achieve a flat and level substructure. Skimming or screeding may be necessary when making use of a glued down method. Either way that substrate or substructure MUST be completely flat and level otherwise you will have boards popping or unnecessary strain being placed on suspended boards resulting in nails pulling out or breaking. Once the substructure is completed and you are happy with it you can start installing floor boards.

If the concrete substrate is 20mm or so below the desired height of the top of the floor, then one has no option but to glue the wood down to the substrate. A batten is typically 25mm to 35mm thick and a floor board is typically about 20mm. So one would need at least 45mm between the desired top of floor height and substrate in order to make use of this method. Most older houses made use of suspended floors and the ground was typically 500mm to a metre below the floor and was sand. Columns were built up to support the beams and joists. In these older houses a suspended floor is the only option. In most modern-day homes the concrete substrate is set at about 20mm to 25mm below the door frames so that any floor can be utilised (i.e. wood or carpets). In these homes a glued down floor is the only option as the height of the substrate won’t allow for battens and floor boards as it will result in the top of the floor being higher than the door frames. It’s not impossible but also not preferable to have your floor 20mm or 30mm higher than your door frame.

One should be careful of glueing floor boards to a substrate that moves itself. If for instance the substrate is ply wood, installed on top of joists, then a suspended floor should be the method as the substrate will also be moving, thereby creating problems with the floor boards.

All wood “moves”, that is it expands and contracts with seasons and humidity. A suspended floor will allow the wood to move more freely as it is nailed down as opposed to being glued down. Being able to move a bit more freely will result in less boards splitting, popping or cracking over time. A suspended floor will have a hollow sound to it, which some people prefer while a glued down floor will have a more solid sound to it as it is glued directly to a concrete substrate.

Wood should always be allowed to acclimatise before being installed. This applies to both glued down and suspended methods. If we take teak for instance. It will originate probably in Zimbabwe, be machined there and exported to South Africa. It will arrive and will spend some time in Gauteng and then be shipped to Durban and then to its final destination. The changes in humidity and temperature between all these places affect the overall size of the wood. In more humid environments the wood will swell, expand slightly and in drier environments it will shrink, or contract slightly. It should be allowed to “rest” for at least two weeks, at its place of installation before being installed, to acclimatise to the local climatic conditions. Thin pieces of wood should also be placed between boards to allow for movement of air while it is acclimatizing.

The best time to install a floor is in the summer months. The wood would have (excuse the pun) swelled slightly due to heat and humidity (assuming of course the local conditions are more humid in summer than winter, such as Durban). The boards will be installed in this slightly swelled state and in winter they will contract slightly. If we do it the other way around, install in winter, then the wood will be contracted when being installed and will expand in summer and the boards will push up against each other, on the sides, and may pop. If winter is the only time one can install them, then allowance needs to be made for this and small gaps need to be left between boards to allow them to swell in summer. The size of the gap will depend on the type of timber being used. Harder woods will require less than softer woods as they will move less between seasons. When I say gaps I mean very slight gaps and I should rather refer to it as loosely laid as opposed to tightly laid.

Types of wood

There are various types of wood one can use for flooring. Some work better than others and the imported exotic hardwood such as Oak and Walnut are very expensive as opposed to locally grown timber such as pine or Saligna. Softer woods such as pine and Saligna (gum) can be used but will not be as durable as a hardwood such as teak or oak. They may split or crack sooner and will expand and contract more. Pine and Saligna work best being suspended rather than being glued down because they expand and contact more easily due to their lower density. Also the floors life span will be shorter because with every maintenance interval the soft wood will lose about 2mm from the surface when sanded. A hardwood such as teak will loose considerably less than that and as such its life span will be longer (i.e. it can be sanded many more times).

The different types of wood also vary in colour from dark to light and then some with varied colour like brown and white teak or Kiaat. Some of these variations in colour are due to heart wood and sap wood being present. Brown and white teak for instance is made up of heartwood and sap wood, heart wood being the timber close to the middle of the tree and sap wood being that close to the outside of the tree. Heart wood is by far the best as it is older and therefore harder and more resistant to attack by insects and rot. It is unavoidably more expensive.

Types of floor boards

There are various types of floor boards available on the market today. Most are tongue and grooved so that one side has a tongue and one side has a groove. When installing the tongue of one floor board is inserted into the groove of the board next to it to provide a tight fit and stop the boards from moving in a vertical direction against each other. The result being that your floor will remain flat for longer, if not forever. There are various different types of tongue and groove too which makes installation easier and results in less problems. Normally the tongue is slightly shorter than the groove to allow it to slide into the groove and not be prevented from being inserted all the way in so that the boards butt up flush with each other. Sometimes the tongue swells and the inside of the grooves swell, when moving into an area of more humidity, which makes it near impossible to get the tongue into the groove. A good floor board manufacturer will allow for this by making the tongue slightly thinner and shorter than the groove.

With locally grown timber such as pine or Saligna the boards come in longer lengths, typically 3m or so. With these longer boards they are normally only tongue and grooved on opposite sides along the length of the board. When installing, one will either cut the end of the board to reach a joist or batten, resulting in a small amount of waste or one will install an extra batten on that board only to support the end of the board. With imported timber such as teak, the boards will come in much shorter lengths as the longer stuff carries a premium price tag and is normally reserved for other uses. These are commonly known as maxi planks and vary in length from 450mm to 1m. If the same method as above was used one would be inserting extra battens all over the place which would not be feasible. So what the manufacturer does is to tongue and groove all four sides of the board. When the end of the board is reached there is no need to install an extra batten as the ends are tongue and grooved and fit snugly into each other without any vertical movement.

There are specialised tools for hardwood installation. We make use of an angled floor nailer. The nailer drives a nail at a 45° angle through the tongue and into the batten or joist. It also counter sinks it so that the nail does not impede the next board from butting up tight against the first one. The nail is now invisible and cannot be seen from the surface of the floor. The nail is also flat in that it is thinner than it is wide. This allows the nail to be driven through the timber between the grain on it’s thinner side so as not to split the tongue. It is hook shaped and ribbed so that it does not pull out over time.

I hope I have shed some light in the pros and cons of hardwood flooring and what to consider when installing hardwood floors and that you enjoy your hardwood floors for many years to come.

For a free no obligation quote on your solid hardwood floor, please call us on 082 496 5444 or use the contact us form below.

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2014 in review

Posted on January 25, 2015 by Garrick Dunstan

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 22,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Timber Decking Companies Durban

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Garrick Dunstan

We are a timber decking company based in Durban and specialise in the construction of timber sun deck, pergolas, walkways, stairs etc. We use primarily H3 and H4 CCA treated pine as our substructure and balau deck boards. Our balustrades and stairs are all made from balau unless otherwise specifically designed in pine. The H3 and H4 CCA Treated pine has a life span of between 30 and 50 years outdoors in the elements and although the balau is not pressure treated it will also last in excess of 30 years.

The timber deck we built in this article was in Plantations in Hillcrest and was a low-level pool deck. The pictures alongside show the different stages of construction and I will explain, in this article, the challenges we experienced with this one. All timber decks we build come with their own challenges and there are various techniques we use to overcome these challenges.
Our first challenge here was that the paving alongside the pool was not parallel to the house. There was a difference of about 80mm over a distance of about 3m. If we had simply placed our deck boards down with equal gaps between them we would have ended with a wedged shaped deck board with a measurement of zero on one side and 68mm on the other side which would be unsightly. In order to overcome this one needs to vary the gaps between deck boards.

In this instance we needed to gain 80mm over a distance of 3m. We needed to start with a gap of 4mm on one side of the run, and the gap needed to increase along the length of the deck board run to 6mm on the other side effectively giving us a gain of 2mm per board. Over a distance of 3m, a total of 40 deck boards, with a width of 68mm and a gap of approximately 5mm, will be needed. If we increase the gap on one side of the run to 6mm and reduce the gap on the other side of the run to 4mm, we gain 2mm per run of deck boards. 2mm x 40 deck boards gives us a
total of 80mm that we will gain thereby reducing the difference on either side to zero. In effect you are “fanning” the deck boards to close the difference created by the wall not being parallel to the house. Simple hey? Not always so. Because each run of deck boards is made up of about 3 or 4 separate pieces it can be tricky to keep the runs straight whilst still “stealing” millimetres. At the same time you need to try to end on a full deck board instead of having to rip one deck board to half the width to finish decking the area. We weren’t able to do this because we were running out of space to start increasing or decreasing the gaps to end on a full board. So instead we installed a 90mm deck board on the last run to close the 32mm gap we had left.

We built this timber deck in two sections and then filled the gaps in between. Some of it was on grass and some was on soil, so there was a mixture of posts in ground with concrete and posts on top of paving.

Another challenge here was that because we were building flush to the pool paving AND the floor inside we had to check that the height of the pool paving and the height of the floor inside were the same. They never are because the world is not flat. While I prefer building as flat, level and square as I can, sometimes one needs to build slightly off in order to line up with other substrates that are not perfect, and they never will be. One needs to be careful though that by building off square and level does not affect the total build or the visual appearance of the structure. If it will, then another plan needs to be made.

For a free no obligation quote on your sun deck and other outdoor related structure please contact us on 082 496 5444 or use the contact us form below.

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Wooden Decking Durban

Posted on December 10, 2014 by Garrick Dunstan

We built this wooden deck in Pinetown, Durban over a well so could not rest any joists on the well lid itself. Normally we would have raised the height of the deck enough to use 50 x 228 as joists. A 50 x 228 piece of wood can be spanned about 3m without any support below which would have solved our problem. However we could not come up that far as that would have resulted in two steps from the raised deck level to the tiled area on the patio.

We used 38 x 152 stock as our joist material, compared to the normal 38 x 114 stock which we normally use. This allowed us to span up to about 2.2m which still wasn’t quite far enough to get over the well. We brought the feet of the deck in as close as we could and placed them on top of the side wall of the well. We also braced the deck in other places so as to stop any bouncing which would have occurred otherwise. There was also a corner that we had to cut off so that it created a clear pathway from the lower deck around the awning upright and on to the tiled patio. Half of the pool was built with pavers or coping stones on the edge of the pool and the other half had wooden decking. So we had to get all our levels right to create a seamless integration between materials. It is quite popular now to mix materials and have a combination of pavers and wood and grass.

The pool pump was installed below the deck on the highest end and some trap doors were built on top of the deck to access the filters etc. We had to build a big enough trap door to allow a person to climb in there to change the sand or do other maintenance if needed.

The sides were clad to block visibility underneath the deck and a full length step was built along the one side for access to the grassed area.
A small opening was created on one side to house the pump DB board and this can later be hinged with a small door if the client wishes.

The challenges on building pool decks between a tiled area and the side of a pool is to get the deck boards to fit into the space you have been given to work with. If the side of the pool isn’t 100% parallel to the side of the house, up to which you will deck, then you need to adjust the spaces between deck boards on one or both sides of the deck to either gain or lose space as you lay deck boards. If for instance one side is 20mm wider than the other side, you will need to gain 1mm per row of deck boards in order to bring your deck boards parallel to the house so that you don’t end on a wedge-shaped deck board. At times this can be quite tricky. We are working on one in Hillcrest where the house and the pool paving is 77mm out of parallel. The total distance is only 2.4m. So the space will take approximately 32 deck boards to fill. Which means we need to gain or lose more than 2mm per row of deck boards to bring the last deck board parallel to the side of the house (or pool depending on which side we start decking). What we’re doing there is to increase the gap between deck boards to 6mm one side and reduce it to 4mm on the other side.
Then the last trick is to adjust your deck board spaces so that you don’t end on a half deck board. So once you are parallel you need to either reduce the gap tot 4mm or increase to 6mm to gain or lose space so you end on a full deck board.

For a free no obligation quote on your wooden sun deck, balustrades, walkways, pergolas, screens and other timber construction, please call us on 082 496 5444, or use the contact us form below.

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Wooden Decking Companies in Durban

Posted on October 21, 2014 by Garrick Dunstan

Click to enlarge

There are many wooden decking companies in Durban that one can choose from when planning to install a wooden deck. Some are reputable companies and some are not, as in any industry.

Besides comparing price one should always compare services to make sure you are comparing like quotes. Some wooden decking companies in Durban for instance will offer to build you wooden deck as well as seal it and other will only quote to build it. Some will offer to fill the screw holes with epoxy to stop water getting in them which will cause rot and others won’t. It is these small things that one needs to ask about and make sure that the service being received from one wooden decking company in Durban is the same as the other that you are comparing to.

Our service at The Wood Joint, includes the following: –

Building the deck with quality yellow balau. We generally build our substructure out of H3 and H4 CCA Treated pine. This is not only due to a cost factor but also because the pine is correctly treated to H3 CCA level which has a life span of at least 50 years exposed to the elements. You can expect to pay about 40% more if you chose a balau substructure. H3 CCA Treated pine is guaranteed for 50 years if used in the correct application and installed correctly. It will therefore outlast balau as a substructure because the balau is not, and cannot be, pressure treated. I have often seen balau joists rotting from the top where the water gets trapped between the joist and the deck board. We always use balau deck boards as balau behaves better than pine on horizontal surfaces. Balau is a lot more stable and the pine tends to cup and warp over time with the constant hot and cold, expansion and contraction and occasional wetting.

Click to enlarge

Our balustrades and stairs are all made from balau, unless otherwise specified, because if one uses pine as a balustrade, the pickets and cross supports need to be almost twice as thick as balau so they tend to look a bit too chunky. Balustrades do not work well in pine because of the knots found in pine which weaken the timber.

We use a kalgard decking screw which is guaranteed for 25 years by the manufacturer against rust. The screws are counter sunk and the counter sunk hole is filled with epoxy and saw dust so as to match the colour as closely as possible. Filling the screw hole stops water sitting in that hole and travelling up the deck board along the grain. Exposure to water for too long will speed up the rot process. So we fill it, sand it flat, and seal the deck using an oil based sealer which contains no wax. This makes it easy and therefore inexpensive to maintain your deck going forward. I have done a few refurbishment jobs where the decking company has not filled these holes and on the older decks, the deck boards have started to rot there. These are all standard services we offer which are normally included in the price we quote. So when comparing our quotes to others, please check what value added services they are offering you.

For a free no obligation quote on your wooden deck, pergolas, screens, walkways, etc. please contact us on 082 496 5444 or use the contact us form below.

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Wooden Balau Walkway Umhlanga, Durban

Posted on October 1, 2014 by Garrick Dunstan

This wooden balau walkway, or bridge, leading to the beach, needed to be replaced as the old one, although it was nearly 20 years old, had started sinking on one side. It had been built on beach sand so the concrete that had been used to set the upright posts had sunk over time into the soft sand. This problem also occurs on decks that are built on the bluff as the Bluff is essentially one big sand dune, so many parts of it are soft enough to allow a post to sink over time.

We overcame this problem by making use of a floating foundation. It is often used in building houses where the soil is very soft. Instead of throwing a concrete foundation beneath the walls and bringing the bricks up and then throwing a slab, the entire foundation is a concrete slab on top of which the bricks are laid. The result being that it creates a much larger foot print in the sand and is of course more difficult to sink than if it was a column of concrete.

This method solved the problem of the posts sinking, but created another problem in that there was no lateral support for our posts which would have resulted in them falling over. This was overcome by throwing a “pad” on every second post and every other post was set 600mm in the ground in concrete. So one post stopped it from sinking and the other gave it lateral support and stopped it from falling over.

The floating “pads” were 600mm x 600mm and 150mm thick with mesh in between to stop the concrete from cracking with the weight of the deck.

The pics alongside show the “pad” that the upright posts sits on top of and a post that has been buried in the ground 600mm.

Once our structure was up we installed our joists and decked it using balau deck boards. The width was 1.5m so we installed 4 joists to give us joist centres of 500mm. This is about the maximum one can span a 19mm deck board without it bowing from the weight of a person. Anything bigger than 500mm will result in the deck surface being springy. One should aim for between 450mm and 500mm. This of course applies to a 19mm balau deck board. If another timber is being used, or the board is anything but 19mm thick, then this will vary.

We used the uprights, which were 100 / 125, H4 CCA treated gum poles, as our uprights for our balustrade too so as to ensure that they were sturdy. Because our gum poles were between 100mm and 125mm in diameter, we had to use a 38 x 152 H3 CCA Treated pine capping; otherwise the capping would have been narrower than the upright which would have looked odd. We then installed droppers as our pickets and secured these through the top of the capping and from underneath the deck boards.

Our stairs leading from the last section of walkway to the beach were made using H3 CCA treated pine stringers and treads and we then clad the treads with balau to match the walkway surface.

For a free, no obligation quote, on your wooden decks, walkways, bridges, screens, pergolas and other outdoor timber construction, please call us on 082 496 5444 or use the contact us form below.

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Wooden Deck Built in Hillcrest, Durban

Posted on September 7, 2014 by Garrick Dunstan

Here’s video of a wooden deck we built recently in Hillcrest, Durban showing the different stages of the build.

Give us a call for a quote on your wooden sun deck, wooden pergolas, walkways, bridges, floors or fences on 082 496 5444 or use the contact us form below.

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Wooden Sun Decks and Wire Rope Balustrades

Posted on September 3, 2014 by Garrick Dunstan

A wire rope balustrade on a wooden sun deck, as pictured in this article, has a few pros and cons to it which I will discuss below. I will also describe the method used to install wire rope balustrades and what to be careful of to ensure that the job runs smoothly. If you don’t feel like doing it yourself, or don’t have the right tools or time, then scroll to the bottom and complete the contact us form below. I will contact you and we can take the task off your hands. Alternatively call us on 082 496 5444. We are Durban based.

Firstly one should choose the correct wire rope to use. We use the 4mm marine grade stainless steel wire rope with button heads. One can also get the 5mm wire rope but I have found that that often contains one rogue strand which will tarnish over time and spoil the look of your balustrade. The 4mm wire rope does not bend as easily as the others so where you get to a 90° bend you will need to terminate your wire rope with a button head and start again on the next run. The 4mm wire rope can bend around gentler curves quite easily. It is just the 90° bends that require a new run.

We start by installing our wooden, normally balau, uprights and these can be anything from a 30 x 60, 40 x 60 or 60 x 60. Obviously the 60 x 60 is better as it is more solid and stable, but it unavoidably carries a higher price tag. A 40 x 60 works very well, but the 30 x 60 can do the job just as well if installed properly. Now install your capping on the top to hold the whole lot together while you install your wire rope.

There are various methods of securing your wire rope. We use the button heads as opposed to turnbuckles. A hole is drilled, to a diameter slightly bigger than the button head, in the wooden upright and the wire rope is threaded through it so that the tag end is protruding to the outside of the balustrade. One side of the button head is then inserted over the wire rope and crimped using a special crimping tool. The crimping tool looks very similar to a large bolt cutter with a head that has been adapted to accept the button head and crimp it to the right size to hold the wire rope without damaging it.

Now cut a length of wire rope to slightly more than is required. Remember think twice, cut once as it is always easier to cut more off then to add more on once it has been cut too short. Now all your holes need to be drilled in all the other upright posts. Measure you spaces out accurately so that your wire rope will run parallel to the capping on the top and the wooden deck on the bottom. When drilling through a piece of wood it is easy to hold the drill slightly skew resulting in the drill bit exiting the wood at an angle which will result in the exit hole not being in the place it should be. So drill half way from one side and then drill from the other side to get your entry and exit holes perfectly lined up. It doesn’t matter if the middle of your hole is slightly skew because you can’t see it and it is not enough to impede the path of the wire rope. Thread the other un crimped end of the wire rope through all your holes in your uprights until you get to the end.

Now take the other button head with the thread on it and measure, very carefully, where you need to cut your wire rope. You will need to cut it with a thin cutting disk on a baby grinder so as to get a nice clean-cut. If you cut it too long you won’t be able to tension it and too short, well start again from the beginning. So cut and check before crimping the other end. The second button head will be inserted through the hole from the back and the wire rope inserted into it from the front and crimped. Make sure you have your thread to its longest position so that you still have thread to use to tension it. Now tension it, but do not over tighten it. It is not a guitar string and only needs to be tight enough to be visibly straight. Over tightening it will result in the end wooden uprights bowing, or even failing.

Pros of Wire Rope Balustrades

• Does not interfere in your vision when seated and looking through the balustrade
• Adds a second material, other than timber, for a clean minimalist look and feel
• Marine grade stainless will last a life time

Cons of Wire Rope Balustrades

• Does not offer as much protection from objects or people falling through the strands as timber does
• If installed incorrectly can look terrible
• Can detract from the timber look and feel

Good luck in installing your wire rope balustrade. I hope this article has helped. If you’re not up to it, please complete the form below, or contact us on 082 496 5444 and we will gladly quote you to do the task for you. We are Durban based and work throughout KZN.

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