oldognewtrick

I think at this point, thats the least of his problems...

nealtw

The idea is neat, if I can say neat, but if they just chalked between the boards over the joists, failure is garrenteed this year or some time down the road. The water will stick to the joists until it runs into the beam. I would like to see pictures before they put the deck boards on and before they put the soffet up.
Sorry Scrach, I'm no help here but I like the look, I'am not sure how someone would expect it to work.

Scratch3386

Nothing stops the water from entering the deck. The vinyl underdecking system catches the water and uses gutters and downspouts to drain it.

http://www.marylanddeckandshed.com/under-decking.html

It's meant to keep the finished concrete I had poured at ground level dry - and therefore more useful.

If/when I can resolve the leaking beam problem I intend to enclose partially underneath and use it for motorcycle garage, workspace and storage.

Scratch3386

The whole underdecking works fine except for that beam. That's where the leak is occurring, because the two crews didn't communicate and the beam wasn't properly covered.

nealtw

What were they supposed to do?

Scratch3386

That's the point of my thread. I was hoping someone here with more direct knowledge/experience in decks and underdecking than myself would be able to advise me.

joecaption

http://www.underdeck.com/

For anyone who has not seen this done before, the O/P has a system like this installed.
It looks like soffit, but it's not.
I would have installed a piece of Pressure treated wood from the top of that double up beam that was sized to fit between the two 2X's
Then would have flashed the top of that beam with one piece of coil stock in the shape of a U up side down installed over Storm and Ice Shield to isolate it from the pressure treated wood. The U shaped piece would also have had two "tales" on the bottom to help devert the water to the drain system.

Caulking was just a very bad idea and will never work.

Also I have not used nails in any deck boards for at least 5 years, why use them instead of screws when nails are just going to come loose once the wood drys out. I even bought screw guns that I can use standing up.
With the newer ACQ wood I've seen to many cases where the so called ACQ nails still rust at the heads, so I use Ceramic coated screws.

nealtw

Good luck!

nealtw

Joe: That's where I would have gone too, but they claim to be able to do this with your old deck!

joecaption

And it can be installed under just about any deck already built.
But in this case it looks like it was not built according to the maufactures instrutions.
It can not simply be nailed up under the old floor joist. It would have no slope that way.
Picture how a droped ceiling is install, it's kind of sort of done the same way.