Decking / platform - what to replace with?
Discussion
Looking for ideas.
Our apartment has an area approx 4m x 4m outside the front door, which has beams on the underside and decking laid on top.
This area merges into a walkway (again decking with wooden beams on the underside).
Beneath this area is access to two other apartments on the ground floor (our apartment is on the upper ground floor).
When it rains, as one would expect, the water just drains through the decking making access to the two apartments on the ground floor a bit miserable!
We are looking for ideas on what to replace this decking with.
So far we have concluded that whatever we replace it with will require some kind of drainage at one or both sides, and it may need to be angled ever so slightly to facilitate this.
However we can't decide on the best material to replace the decking boards. I think that ordinarily, a structure like this would be constructed from concrete, but I suspect that would be costly and require the wooden beams to be replaced with steel?
One thing we have considered is to use composite decking, but then the issue of drainage and leaks between the joins remains.
Another idea was to go with decking again, but then provide some kind of waterproof sheeting on the underside to drain any water off to a gutter.
We plan to get someone in at some stage to advise us, but it would be useful to have some solid ideas before doing so, hence this post.
Thanks in advance.
Our apartment has an area approx 4m x 4m outside the front door, which has beams on the underside and decking laid on top.
This area merges into a walkway (again decking with wooden beams on the underside).
Beneath this area is access to two other apartments on the ground floor (our apartment is on the upper ground floor).
When it rains, as one would expect, the water just drains through the decking making access to the two apartments on the ground floor a bit miserable!
We are looking for ideas on what to replace this decking with.
So far we have concluded that whatever we replace it with will require some kind of drainage at one or both sides, and it may need to be angled ever so slightly to facilitate this.
However we can't decide on the best material to replace the decking boards. I think that ordinarily, a structure like this would be constructed from concrete, but I suspect that would be costly and require the wooden beams to be replaced with steel?
One thing we have considered is to use composite decking, but then the issue of drainage and leaks between the joins remains.
Another idea was to go with decking again, but then provide some kind of waterproof sheeting on the underside to drain any water off to a gutter.
We plan to get someone in at some stage to advise us, but it would be useful to have some solid ideas before doing so, hence this post.
Thanks in advance.
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