What Size Deck Screws To Use For 2x6

How to Choose the Right Fastener for Your Deck

Requite your deck a sturdy, durable foundation with these tips on choosing the all-time deck fastener. Nosotros'll walk you through all of your fastener options, including nails, screws, framing hardware, and more.

Choosing the right fasteners for your deck can feel like an overwhelming decision. Screws, nails, and anchoring hardware have to stand upwards to many years of moisture, so it's important to select a durable fastening organisation when building a DIY deck. Standard galvanized fasteners, for example, have a single protective blanket, which might flake off and rust. Double-dipped galvanized fasteners are amend protected, simply y'all'll get the best life from coated fasteners fabricated for decks. Stainless steel is costly just ane of the best deck fastener materials available. We'll walk you through all of the deck fastener options, plus provide pros and cons for each cloth.

jars with screws and nails

one. Nails and Screws

Nails are sized by their length, designated by a penny, or d, size. Judge, or diameter, increases every bit the penny size increases; a 16d boom is both longer and fatter than an 8d.

Common nails, used for general framing, have big heads and thick shanks. They hold well but are hard to drive and may divide the woods.
Box nails, thinner than mutual nails of the same size, reduce splitting in three/4-inch or thinner stock.
Ringshank and screw nails grip the wood fibers and don't hands work their manner out. They are very difficult to remove.
Finishing nails have slender shanks and minor, barrel-shaped heads. Employ them for trim piece of work and countersink the heads.
Casing nails are heftier versions of finishing nails and provide more holding power.

Screws come in a broad array of styles. A expert all-around choice is #10 decking screws—generally in 2 one/2- to 3 1/2-inch lengths. Decking screws are sharp, tapered, self-sinking, and coated for corrosion resistance. With a cordless drill/driver, yous tin can drive them about as fast as nails. Be sure to lucifer your screwdriver bit to the screw caput (or vice versa). Decking screws generally are machined with a Phillips, square, or a combination head. Square heads drive more deeply.

How to Choose Betwixt Nails and Screws for Deck Fasteners

Screws are about as quick to drive as nails and have greater holding power. Equally long as yous bulldoze them accurately, without stripping the head, screws are easier to remove than nails. Yet, many people don't like the way screw heads look because a small amount of water will pool inside them. Water will not puddle on a nailhead unless yous drive it likewise deep. To an experienced builder, driving nails is a bit faster than driving screws.

However, if you lot miss a nailhead with the hammer, or if yous drive the nail besides far, you will mar the woods. And it is difficult to remove a nailed board without damaging the lath.

anchor screw

two. Framing Hardware

Framing connectors strengthen the joints between framing members. Not too long ago, framing members were joined with nails or screws, just most electric current edifice codes now require framing hardware.

Attach joists to the side of a ledger or beam using joist hangers. At the corner, either cut a joist hanger in one-half using can snips or use an angle bracket. Angled joist hangers arrange joists that attach at a 45-degree angle.

Where a beam sits on superlative of a post, a post cap provides a reliable joint. If joists sit down on top of a axle, many local codes allow you simply to angle-bulldoze screws to secure the joists to the beam. Other local building departments require special seismic (or hurricane) ties, which add lateral strength.

A mail service anchor secures a post to a physical pier and supports it so the bottom tin dry betwixt rainfalls. Get the style that you can arrange and then you can fine-tune the posts and continue them on the same line.

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3. Heavy-Duty Screws and Bolts

To fasten a large piece like a postal service, utilize either a lag screw or a carriage bolt. Bolts are stronger and can be tightened in future years if the lumber shrinks. Ever employ washers nether the head of a lag screw or the nut on a carriage bolt then that the fastener does not sink into the wood.

Attach a ledger to brick, cake, or physical with lag screws and masonry anchors. Concur a ledger temporarily with masonry screws, which are non quite as strong but are easier to bulldoze and don't require anchors.

wooden pathway backyard

4. Other Types of Deck Fasteners

You can avoid visible nails and screws completely with invisible deck fastening systems. Invisible fasteners come in many forms. They are more expensive and more than time-consuming to install, but they leave a make clean, uncluttered deck surface. They are especially useful in contemporary deck designs or with complicated decking patterns because they don't distract from the pattern of the decking itself. Deck clips are the easiest to install because you tin work from the top of the deck. Continuous fasteners crave driving screws from underneath and are better suited to raised decks.

Yous can also use masonry fasteners. With this hardware, an anchor bolt comes preassembled so its sleeve expands against the sides of a predrilled hole as you lot tighten the bolt. Drill a hole of the same bore and at least 1/2 inch longer. Blow out the dust and drive the commodities with the nut just at the meridian of the threads. Make certain the bolt doesn't turn when tightening. Plastic or soft-metal expansion shields are designed to spread their sides equally you tighten the fastener. Drill a hole of the same bore and length of the shield, and tighten the screw.

Power Fasteners

Power fasteners, such as nail guns, screw guns, and ability-actuated fasteners, speed up carpentry projects. Some are powered by compressed air, others use a power cell or chemical or explosive charges. Ability fasteners are expensive, but you tin can rent the tool you need at well-nigh rental stores. Plus, they offering many advantages over a traditional hammer and nails:

The gun tin can be operated with one hand, leaving the other hand gratis to steady the piece of work and go along it aligned.
A single blow drives the blast from the gun, eliminating the repeated hammer blows that can jolt a slice out of alignment.
The adventure of bending a nail or missing the nailhead and denting the deck is eliminated.
Nails used in nail guns are thin and accept blunt tips that seldom divide the wood piece.
Y'all tin can nail in places or positions that would exist difficult to reach with a hammer.
Many guns can be set to countersink the fasteners or exit them flush with the surface.

deck white lounge chairs

How to Choose the Right Size Fastener

Use these tips to go the sizing right for your deck fasteners:

Decking: Fasten five/four decking with 21/2-inch coated screws or 12d ringshank or spiral nails.
Railings: Attach 1x trim, rails, and cap rails with 10d, 8d, and6d galvanized, finishing, or casing nails.
Framing: Use 10d or 16d common, spiral, or ringshank nails or decking screws in 2x stock, 8d or 10d box or ringshank nails or shorter deck screws in thinner stock. Adhere framing hardware with the fasteners supplied by the manufacturer, 16d nails, or three-inch deck screws. Cheque with your building inspector—some codes prohibit attaching framing connectors with screws.