To cover the wooden deck or not, that is the question.

[Rosamunda]

Our deck is floating on blocks ( or concrete posts, can't remember which), when it really, really freezes the deck can rise maybe 30-40 cms off the blocks!! It hasn't happened for a couple of years (remember last time we could walk to St. Petersburg??? Was it 2005??) but you really should be careful when that happens. Then, when the ground thaws out it all settles back into place again.

[Mattlill2000]

That can happen to a floating deck. To solve this problem you dig holes with a post digger as deep as you can go and then make posts by pouring concrete into a tube lets say 20cm. thick and about 30cm. above the ground. Then drop some some clamps on the wet concrete. Then when its dry you can anchor the deck to the clamps with nails and the floating problem will be cured.

[Pursuivant]

as long as it goes lower than the frost, but it depends on the ground - if its a certain type of clay you are f*d... I have a terraced lot and I build casting concrete and whatnot and its all to do with the type of soil and waterbed... sometimes you need to "fake" stuff... styrofoam is magical used correctly

[Mattlill2000]

styrofoam is magical used correctly

You mean that you lay strofoam under the ground and under the deck to prevent frost from heaving the deck? I've never heard of that before but you know it may just work! We've put stryrofoam over waterpipes and sewage pipe to prevent freezing............ Great tip!

should have waited this season before oiling/painting it.

Absolutely correct. That one slipped my mind. Also 80cm. is too big of a gap.

[Rosamunda]

Yep, our plot is on GREEN clay and lots of it.

[Pursuivant]

styrofoam is magical used correctly

You mean that you lay strofoam under the ground and under the deck to prevent frost from heaving the deck?

you know... permafrost vs. permawarm... on clay I'd excavete a meter, lay "founding"... and do gravel with pipes but it doesn't work if you are in a clay pit, you are doing a "swimming basin" all the water gets into... so topsoil off and if I had a floater the styrofoam to insulate the clay from the top-down frost... 50/60 but its doing a "floater"... and I think if I display a few of my own theories it is anathema... but if you have a roof over the deck then you can insulate the ground (I'm doing a water waste disposal like that and its going to be concrete and styrofoam)

[Pursuivant]

Yep, our plot is on GREEN clay and lots of it.

you want to buy a bridge in London?

...errr..yeah, the little I've done soil sampling thats... erm... frostprone of them all..