Replace Loose Deck Nails with Screws

LESLIE: John in Montana’s up next. And you want to talk about replacing nails with screws in your deck. What’s going on? Are they popping up? What’s happening?

JOHN: Okay. The nails are coming out of my deck.

TOM: Okay.

JOHN: I want to put screws in it. But do I need to glue the screws in or can I just screw in … because the wood is not bad.

TOM: No, you absolutely don’t need to put any kind of glue in. The deck screws that are available today are, first of all, galvanized or otherwise plated so they’re not going to rust. And secondly, because they’re a screw, they just hold a lot better, they’re a lot stronger than the nails. The problem with the nails is that the wood expands and contracts; it actually sort of spits the nails out, it forces them out. But the screws, that’s not going to happen. And a lot of the screws today … Leslie, you’ve built a lot of decks on While You Were Out. Aren’t a lot of the deck screws have the square head, now, that you use the special tip for your driver?

LESLIE: They do. There’s actually a brand of screws, specifically made for decks; they’re called Deck Mate. And they come with a special blue tip. It’s either a square or sometimes a star; it depends on which kind you buy. Mostly the square tips, though. It comes with the tip right for your drill so you don’t have to worry about buying anything extra. And sometimes, the interesting thing is that on the backside of the head of the screw, they’ve almost put … almost like a razor’s edge. So as you drive that screw down, it sort of countersinks itself by cutting into the wood a little bit more. So it helps to sort of guide that screw head to be more flush with the surface or even drive it down a little further if you wanted to put a wood plug. So the screws are really a good way to go.

JOHN: Okay.