Larry either his Contract to you is very strange or I am not understanding it.

Did you mean MCQ pt pine and is it 5/4'' thick, is handrail/skirting involved ?

Screw it down with ss trim head trox .

John Hyatt www.deckmastersllc.com

I am always going to be on the side of the Contractor.

Us Contractors need all the money we can get and there is no scale to measure how much is too much.

General Contractors add in their cut on top of the regular costs. Usually its around 20%.

That said your geting the corn cob where the sun dont shine. The man's pricing on routing/screwing is way out of line >> If I was doing the Job Your stuck with the Dude live with it.
Do the best you can with screwing all the 2x6 decking down You really want that.
Actually it would have been better to put down 5/4 over 2x6 with pt lumber the more size the more movement,same lifespan, but what the hay.

The trim head screws will put less stress on the decking and will counter sink. The Man will most likely want to use big head screws, because thats what he knows, they will sit slightly below the decking on install done right and after a season will be flush or a little above the decking. Do what he wants to do. Its not worth the fight.

Dont leave any gap at all, and dont jam the decking up by force, just snug them up. There is going to be plenty of space between them in a short time.

I run into this kind of thing with new buildings all the time. The Deck has little importance in fact its delt with as an after thought. Thus......a lot of them are very short lived. That's a good thing for Me I have a steady business replacing them.

Hang in there Larry, its just a deck, when its all done and the smoke has cleared, Get out there and have a Lone Star beer. Life is good and too short to mess with the small stuff.

JonMon

John,

Thanks for the comments and info. There is no doubt in my mind that if I had asked for these things to be included in the contract, it would have been less $'s. It's still not the end of the world. I was more peo'd about his original edict that anything beyond 5 days would cost me $500 per day.

One final question, with these new MCQ and MCA treatments, how long do you need to wait before staining?

Once again, thanks John.

Cheers,
Larry

Dont wait for anything but good weather to put the finish on any outdoor project.

We are stuck with mcq over here but no matter what kind of wood is used put the finish on right away.

J.

If this 1500 sq. ft. deck requires new footings and framing, I don't think that there is anyway 3 guys are going to build in 4*5 days, even with gun nailing. His crew's guess is a lot closer.

I myself would figure 11 days, to do a quality job. 4 days would be about right to just lay the decking, as long as there were not many pre cuts to be made.

Here's an update. They got started on Thursday May 17, good ol' St Patrick's day. They are working today, Saturday Mar 26, so a total of 8 full days into the project. They will not finish until Tuesday, March 29, giving them a total of 10 days to build it. As we all know, there was no way to build it in 4 to 5 days. And it was a complete tear out with new frame and posts. When it's done, I'll send pictures. In regards to the extra costs, I decided that I wanted the routing instead of rounded edges. Builder called me back and said the only wood he could get did not have rounded edges and he was going to have to route it anyway, so I agreed to paying $250 bucks for routing and he covered the rest of the cost. I probably could have forced him to either delay the project a week to 10 days or have him not charge me for it. That wasn't my goal and I really wanted the routing, so I felt our agreement was fair.

The main issue I have had was with the frame. Just inexperience on their part on what makes a quality deck frame. For me, It's a frame that is level and doesn't give - solid as a rock. I had to go over it myself and show them where it sagged and have them shore it up - anything from additional cross bracing to additional stakes and posts. They weren't happy with me finding fault with their work, but they should have done it right in the first place.

Cheers,
Larry