Deck building - railings and fastener questions

[BgBmBoo]

I'm in the process of building a new deck and am looking for opinions on railings and fasteners. We are going with a traditional PT wood surface with aluminum railing. Local lumber store's preferred brand is DekPro. Anyone have any experience with this brand? Any other aluminum railing recommendations to look into? I don't need to top of the line but want it to look good for the life of the deck.

Second question, Camo fastener system. Looks pretty straight forward and I see I can buy a once used tool on ebay for a discount. Anything in particular I should be aware of with this system that I may not be thinking about? I like the clean look of the hidden fasteners vs screws through the top.

This isn't my first deck build but will be a first using those two products. Just want to make sure I'm not overlooking something.

Thoughts and advice welcome! Thanks!

 

[MrSurly]

Great questions as I will soon be looking at these issues. Following along here...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Jackfre]

I have a small Tree deck off the back of the house. We experimented with a number of fastening methods and found the Camo system to be the best. Hidden fasteners, secure and fast. I have no DecPro experience.

 

[dcg9381]

I haven't used Camco, but looks good. Last redwood deck I had, I went back and had to replace the hardware with stainless steel screws as the hardware was aging at rate exceeding that of the wood.

If you've got wood joists, I'd highly recommend that you use a joist wrap (just the top portion of the deck - helps greatly reduce the aging of the joists due to water.

 

[Skiff Builder]

Bg,
I installed the Peak brand Al rail (white) on a fiberglass deck and wood stairs I built. Have to admit it was a Home Depot item. Straight forward install. Strong and stiff. Building inspector really liked it too. In service 3+ years now on salt water property. Only issue was a bit of paint fell off the heads of about 5 or 6 screws this year. Called support and they sent bags of new. - I can deal with that. Happy with it overall.

Seen some folks going to black color on these. Mid summer you can't hold or lean on-too hot.This at 33'39" deg latitude.
Skiffs

 

[MoonRise]

Aluminum can NOT be in contact with pressure treated lumber (especially the ACQ stuff).

The aluminum WILL corrode. Rather quickly.

DO

NOT

DO

IT

In contact with PT lumber, you MUST use stainless OR 'rated' galvanized OR 'rated' proprietary coatings.

 

[My Old Tools]

I redid my deck with stainless posts and stainless cable. I'm very happy with it after the first year.

 

[BgBmBoo]

Jackfre - Awesome! Thank you for your experience.

dcg9381 - Good point on the SS screws. I had thought about looking for an SS alternative that was the same design as the Camo (if there is one out there). I had forgot about the joist wrap, thank you!

SB - Thank you for your recommendation. I will definitely look into that brand. We were leaning towards black but may need to rethink that due to problem you mentioned. Appreciate the response.


MoonRise - From what I have seen a lot of AL railing is powder coated. I wonder if that coating is considered rated for PT wood. I'll look into that some more. Thanks!

Appreciate all the input guys, exactly what I was looking for.

 

[Skiff Builder]

When mounting my railing bases I bedded them in "rubber" ie Sikaflex 291, or 3m 5200, Thiokol 22xx. My reason was to seal penetrations in fiberglass deck.

This would most likely isolate your powder coated Al from the treated deck. Simpson and others make isolation membranes too. Done carefully with 316/304 lags/bolts.