Decking over concrete porch

rhee13

Hey all!

I’m currently in the research and planning stages to makeover my front yard area and wanted to cover the existing concrete porch with decking, extend it out and created a tiered decking to our gate area. 

The new decking area is pretty straight forward, but it’s covering the existing porch that is the issue. It’s almost flush with the front door, about 25mil wiggle room at the moment but we could go another 15mm higher due to inward opening front doors that already has e a gap underneath (want to maintain the original hardwood doors that came with the house). 

Wondering how I would go about attaching a frame to the concrete but also, is it even possible to do and still have room for drainage? We’re in SE Qld so we get our fair share of rain. 

any advice would be appreciated, thanks! 

MitchellMc

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @rhee13. It's fabulous to have you join us and many thanks for your questions.

There is not enough room to create a deck in the traditional sense over the concrete. A deck would have a supporting structure of timber or steel joists and beams. What you would be doing here is cladding the concrete with the decking. There would be no room for drainage or airflow under the decking boards leading to their reduced lifespan. Placing decking directly onto concrete is not recommended. However, I can't find many examples of people doing so and an actual issue arising.

I'm hesitant to say that this can't be done, as in this day and age of low-level decks anything seems possible. 15 years ago all these low-level decks we see now would have been considered too low, and that failure of them was an imminent prospect. My primary concern with cladding the concrete would be how quickly the hardwood decking would degrade from trapped moisture on the underside. 

Let me mention a few of our helpful members @TedBear, @ProjectPete, @Adam_W and @Brad to get their thoughts.

Mitchell