If your deck is made of wood and faces west, it takes a beating. The sun’s UV rays break down wood fibers. You won’t be surprised, then, to learn that when these homeowners called Macon deck builder Archadeck of Central GA, they wanted to replace their wood deck with composite materials.
This home near Macon’s Lake Tobesofkee is in a great location but that afternoon sun is rough. The homeowners’ den receives the afternoon sun, too, and it can get mighty hot in there.
Macon screened porch builder Archadeck of Central GA was called in to replace the deteriorating deck and to add a screened porch to this Macon, GA, home.
Bigger Deck, Resilient Materials
The key to designing a deck that won’t deteriorate under intense sunlight is using composite decking materials. They don’t break down when exposed to the sun’s UV rays the way wood does. We replaced the original deck with a new one in the same area but designed it to be a bit larger. The homeowner chose Deckorators low-maintenance composite decking boards in the prairie color. For the deck railing, we used pressure-treated wood for cost savings and capped it with Deckorators composite rail cap. Many homeowners don’t realize we can mix composite decking with pressure-treated wood for railings, but we can.
Screened Porch Design Challenge
Have you ever designed a porch adjoining a room that has cathedral ceilings and trapezoid windows? It’s likely you haven’t because not many people have. Needless to say, we had to determine where the new porch roof would meet the existing home. Sometimes when you’re working in the area of a home’s windows, you can come in with the porch roof below them (for example, below second-story windows). But with trapezoid windows high up in a room with a cathedral ceiling, well … you end up extending the home’s roofline over the porch addition.
Because we extended the roofline, the screened-in porch has a high ceiling, too. The porch’s ceiling fan is lowered from the ceiling with a 6-foot rod.
Don’t forget, the new construction will also receive the afternoon sun because the outdoor living area – a combination deck and screened porch – is facing west. For that reason, we used Solar Screen mesh for the screens with a 90% grade. That means these heavy-duty screens will block up to 90% of the UV rays, the heat and the glare from direct sunlight that would otherwise heat up the porch. While you can still see out through these screens, they are so effective they will prevent fading of carpets and fabric such as upholstery on the screened porch.
For the porch floor the homeowner chose pressure-treated wood. With such effective screening, the porch floor will not be assaulted by the sun!
Interior Room Also Benefits from 90% Solar Screen
The sunlight that used to stream directly into the home’s den is now filtered by the 90% Solar Screen used on the screened porch. The good news is the den will now stay a lot cooler – or at least use less energy to cool. While the room is going to be darker now, the homeowners feel the reduction in heat is a good tradeoff.
In the course of a project sometimes we extend the scope of the job if the homeowners request additional work. In this case we also replaced the home’s gutters while we were already working along the roofline, and we saved the homeowners a little money doing it that way.
And the Dog is Not Forgotten
The dog of the house is going to love this screened porch but will still want to get out and run around. The dog’s favorite part of the combination screened porch and deck? A screen door with a doggie door. Woof!
If you are interested in replacing a deck, adding a new porch or adding a combination outdoor living space, contact Archadeck of Central Georgia for a design consultation. You can reach us by phone at (478) 745 – 2000 or via email at centralgeorgia@archadeck.net.
