Deck or Patio?

[tractor]

I would go with the patio option, but it really depends if your whole deck is shot, or just some of the boards need to be replaced. Treated lumber is expensive, and a total replacement of a deck of your size could easily reach $10K. Just replacing the deck boards would be cheaper.

You can build a covered section on either a deck or a patio, so that really shouldn't factor into your decision. In fact, many options are available from pre-fab structures available at most home improvement stores, to using a retractable awning attached to the house.

[haapai]

Oct 21, 2023 18:50:53 GMT -5 Pink Cashmere said:

Oct 21, 2023 15:13:51 GMT -5 haapai said:

I'm having a hard time visualizing what you are describing.  I don't know if the deck (or patio) is associated with your back door or whether that door is your main entry and exit into the house.  I don't know if there are two ways to get from the house onto the porch i.e. through a door or through a sliding glass window or only through the sliding glass.  I don't know what room in your house has the sliding glass door that goes out to the porch.  I don't know whether the deck or patio space is on the north, south, east, or west side of your home or even on the front, back or one of the sides.  I don't know whether there is any shade or if that shade is provided by the house, neighboring trees or structures, or some kind of overhanging structure. 

Is there any possibility that the porch was built because the circular steps had no railing associated with them and were kinda scary to navigate? 

Oh boy!

It’s a wood deck, about 4 feet off the ground. If you were visiting, you wouldn’t even know there is a concrete patio under it. So visualizing it, just picture a deck where the floor doesn’t sit on the ground.

It’s on the back of the house, the sliding door is in the den. The deck is accessible from the sliding door in the den, or by walking up the steps on the other end of the deck, from the yard. It faces west, is not covered, and most of it gets morning shade from the house and part of it gets afternoon shade from a large tree. 

We believe it was built by the guy who sold us the house, which would explain some of the issues with it. He had great ideas, but his execution was horrible on everything he did. 

Anything is possible. I’ve seen the half circle steps on other houses before, and can’t recall having seen any with hand rails. They aren’t very steep.

I think I answered everything you listed that you do not know, even though I’m not sure why some of it matters. But if it helps you give a thoughtful response, okay.

I'm pretty much team patio/ team lanai myself but I really need to know whether this is a place where you intend to eat or grill and how you are going to get to that space.  Circular steps without a handrail do not go well with carrying prepared food, no matter how shallow the rise is or how old you are.  I had to pay someone to put a guardrail on my plain three step porch when I was fifty.  Carrying something with both hands with nothing to break my fall and only cement in every direction that I could fall was beginning to bother me.  Putting food down on the steps, descending the steps, and then reaching for the food again gets old very quickly.  (It also does not go well with puppers.)

I'm also a bit of a realist regarding how cement and brick may retain more heat than a wooden deck, even if the wooden deck receives less shade.  It's counterintuitive but it can happen.  

I suspect that if you remove the deck and try living with the patio for a year, you may quickly discover that rebuilding the deck with low-maintenance materials is far cheaper than redoing the hardscaping in your patio area enough to get something that you can work with. 

This is not what I wanted to argue for.  I love the idea of being able to expand.  I love the idea of being able to grow shade instead of installing it.   I like privacy and being three or four feet off the ground does nothing for that (although the breeze up there may be nice).  I'm just trying to be realistic about how much more expensive a patio that you can stand to live with may be than a porch. 

[Pink Cashmere]

Oct 27, 2023 19:59:50 GMT -5 haapai said:

Oct 21, 2023 18:50:53 GMT -5 Pink Cashmere said:

Oh boy!

It’s a wood deck, about 4 feet off the ground. If you were visiting, you wouldn’t even know there is a concrete patio under it. So visualizing it, just picture a deck where the floor doesn’t sit on the ground.

It’s on the back of the house, the sliding door is in the den. The deck is accessible from the sliding door in the den, or by walking up the steps on the other end of the deck, from the yard. It faces west, is not covered, and most of it gets morning shade from the house and part of it gets afternoon shade from a large tree. 

We believe it was built by the guy who sold us the house, which would explain some of the issues with it. He had great ideas, but his execution was horrible on everything he did. 

Anything is possible. I’ve seen the half circle steps on other houses before, and can’t recall having seen any with hand rails. They aren’t very steep.

I think I answered everything you listed that you do not know, even though I’m not sure why some of it matters. But if it helps you give a thoughtful response, okay.

I'm pretty much team patio/ team lanai myself but I really need to know whether this is a place where you intend to eat or grill and how you are going to get to that space.  Circular steps without a handrail do not go well with carrying prepared food, no matter how shallow the rise is or how old you are.  I had to pay someone to put a guardrail on my plain three step porch when I was fifty.  Carrying something with both hands with nothing to break my fall and only cement in every direction that I could fall was beginning to bother me.  Putting food down on the steps, descending the steps, and then reaching for the food again gets old very quickly.  (It also does not go well with puppers.)

I'm also a bit of a realist regarding how cement and brick may retain more heat than a wooden deck, even if the wooden deck receives less shade.  It's counterintuitive but it can happen.  

I suspect that if you remove the deck and try living with the patio for a year, you may quickly discover that rebuilding the deck with low-maintenance materials is far cheaper than redoing the hardscaping in your patio area enough to get something that you can work with. 

This is not what I wanted to argue for.  I love the idea of being able to expand.  I love the idea of being able to grow shade instead of installing it.   I like privacy and being three or four feet off the ground does nothing for that (although the breeze up there may be nice).  I'm just trying to be realistic about how much more expensive a patio that you can stand to live with may be than a porch. 

We did move the grills to the deck, so that space will continue to be our grilling area. We use to have the grill on the ground, and in addition to what you said about navigating steps with your hands full, it is also easier to go out of the sliding door to get to and from the grill, than opening the hinged door in the hinged door in the laundry room that we use to use, because it was closer to the grill when it was on the ground. We don’t eat out there because of all the flies. 

Now I am thinking that even if we rebuild the deck, I can still build an area beside it for the additional seating area that I originally planned to do in the yard. 

Our house is built with brick, and I do realize that the brick walls retain heat. That is going to be an issue either way. 

Shade, we both have a love/hate relationship with the large tree in our backyard. I didn’t mind it until it grew tall and big enough for limbs to be directly overhead on the deck. I don’t really like sitting under trees because stuff falls out of them. I have not sat on the deck for a while now, after a webworm fell on me. 

Today, I am leaning toward rebuilding the deck, tomorrow, I might feel differently lol.

My biggest issue is that I want somewhere that I can sit outside, that is covered so I can sit outside even when it is raining. My imagination sucks, and I can’t see a way to do that with a raised deck. My lack of imagination says a deck with a “roof” will look weird. 

I appreciate you and all the other posters that chimed in, for sharing your thoughts.

[Pink Cashmere]

Oct 26, 2023 7:57:15 GMT -5 tractor said:

I would go with the patio option, but it really depends if your whole deck is shot, or just some of the boards need to be replaced. Treated lumber is expensive, and a total replacement of a deck of your size could easily reach $10K. Just replacing the deck boards would be cheaper.

You can build a covered section on either a deck or a patio, so that really shouldn't factor into your decision. In fact, many options are available from pre-fab structures available at most home improvement stores, to using a retractable awning attached to the house.

Because we believe Dummy (the man we bought the house from) probably built the deck, going by everything else he did to the house, we aren’t confident that it is even supported properly. Looking at the length of the boards and the spacing of the screws, it’s one way on part of the deck, and a different way on the other part. The railing is clearly not secured properly, which is obvious to us, and we don’t even know anything about construction. He painted it all a dark brown color, and while it looked great the times we were at the house before we closed on it, literally the day we moved in, it had started deteriorating. Which is why we did so much to remove the paint and stain it, less than 2 months after we moved in. I wouldn’t be surprised if what was on it at first, was just regular house paint. Those are some of the things that lead us to think he built it himself. 

So because we think he probably built it himself and he made a mess of so much other stuff (that looked nice at first glance, but really was bs and shoddy work, as we immediately started discovering as the masks fell off), for safety reasons, especially since the deck is elevated, we think we need to just tear it all down and start over, and have somebody that knows what they are doing, rebuild it. I would love to just have to replace the wonky boards, but I am concerned about the integrity of the whole structure. 

I have seen overhead structures with panels that you can retract, I forget what they are called. But they look like a good option for a deck.

[jerseygirl]

Our DD has a huge deck on 2 sides of house. One area by one set of doors has a roof. Looks nice and shade is great
Even better would be section of deck with a screen porch.