Slippery Decking

fergal.b wrote: »

Another solution might be to paint it with non slip paint like the type used on boats or coat it in epoxy mixed with silica sand or sprinkled on top you could also use walnut shells if you ever wanted to sand it back smooth the shells come in different grades and are used for blasting.
Just a thought it might be cheeper than putting down mats.




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Top class advise. Use a clear resin, Polyurethane may be best. Use a very fine aggregate, lightly spinkled on or maybe one in the tin, but that may be difficult to get in a clear finish. Do it when the weather is dry or the moisture in the wood may blow off the coating.
No need to ruin the appearance of your expensive decking.

The best advice I can give to anyone is to avoid using decking in the winter (things get slippery with frost, timber more so then a lot of things) if you need to create a walkway for access buy a rubber mat or even a strip of old carpet. Timber decking does indeed need regular treatment to prevent it from rotting but when the temperature is low enough, no preservative is going to stop a layer of water on top of the timber freezing over and creating a lovely deathtrap.

One possible option might be to hammer a LOT of those plastic topped nails (used to fixing plastic angle bead etc) every inch of so on the decking it will be tedious and boring but for €10-€20 you might be able to cover your average sized deck.

I got a thing called Retrogrip. It's an anti slip strip that glues into the decking. Worked a treat for me.

I saw it advertised in the Irish Garden mag. I got it from abbeywoods in baldoyle. I paid about €6 per 1m length.

The 3kg bags of cooking salt from tesco are ideal and @ €1.19 a bag it's not going to break the bank. I bought a couple of bags weeks ago and have only needed to use it now and again. It's not much of a hassle really!

sea swim wrote: »

Ive tried nearly all including rubber grid mat. All they did was hold the damp under the mat.
However I'm just about to try B&Q non slip decking 'strips' before I give up!

The 'expert' advice I got was "don't have a deck in Ireland, the winters are too damp"!

The reason decks are successful in Northern Europe is their winters are dry.

Try stapling chicken wire to the deck in the winter, take it up in the summer,??

Here's a link to how the surface looks after cleaning and two coats of deck oil with a little water on it to show how it beads up and repels it. Washed it with a mix of fairy liquid with a splash of bleach - deck oil is a Ronseal cedar colored one.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2YBWAMYcVPCM0JBY2ktY0FZM1k

After years struggling with the same slippery deck problem, I put up a canopy over it. Now we have a nice, covered, safe and maintenance free deck. My new problem is keeping the clear roof of the canopy clean ..... :rolleyes:

Have had slippery decking since we moved into house circa 8 years ago, was sick of going out into back garden and pirouetting to shed once it rained and was a no go area in the winter, especially for the kids. Took it up about 6 weeks ago and put down slabs in its place, big difference and no more pirouettes.