Wood pathway
- Thread starter Davee
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handyguys
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it depends on if you expect it to last or not. Do you want to do this because of muddy or soggy conditions or is this purely astetic?
In an ideal world you construct this like any other deck with footers, etc. You can get away with just a couple 4x4s or lanscape timbers with decking boards attached as well.
In an ideal world you construct this like any other deck with footers, etc. You can get away with just a couple 4x4s or lanscape timbers with decking boards attached as well.
You might want to think about the need to prepare the sand base you're going to use.
My neighbor in upstate New York built a similar walkway. Used 8 foot pressure treated 4X4's on a two inch sand base and Trex decking material. It looked great until we had frost heaves over the winter.
He had to dig out the base and use a compactor (similar to putting down pavers). After he did that, no more problems. I've always wondered if using shorter 4X4's would have eliminated the problem also.
My neighbor in upstate New York built a similar walkway. Used 8 foot pressure treated 4X4's on a two inch sand base and Trex decking material. It looked great until we had frost heaves over the winter.
He had to dig out the base and use a compactor (similar to putting down pavers). After he did that, no more problems. I've always wondered if using shorter 4X4's would have eliminated the problem also.
It really depends on how much foot traffic this will get. If it will be used as any walkway quite a bit, I would at least dig footers every 6 ft or so on either side and lay the 4x4's across those. With weather changes you might get some heave if you just put on sand.
Make sure you use heavy duty landscape fabric underneath....not plastic (you'll want drainage, not standing water).
travelover
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Make sure you don't put any slope on it - wood is notoriously slippery when wet.
T
TxBuilder
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What are you going with Davee?
Just don't paint the boards. I've had a Trex deck and several stained wooden ones. I don't recall one being more slippery than the other. On our current house, we replaced a wooden painted (very slippery) deck with a Timber Tech deck. The Timber Tech was a little less expensive than TREX AND the grain effect in the plastic material is slightly raised (maybe making it less slippery).
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