Home Improvement

Patios and decks extend your existing home because they reclaim part of the garden and add extra living space. These offer wonderful spaces where you can simply sit on an easy chair for an entire afternoon, sipping refreshing drinks and enjoying conversations with friends. For the value that they give, the cost of constructing patios and decks can be fairly reasonable. All you need to do is keep them well-maintained and always check for damages to the structure or rotting that may lead to their gradual deterioration. Patios and decks differ from each other in the way they’re constructed but both are invaluable to your family’s enjoyment and relaxation.
Patios and Decks For Extending Your Home into Your Garden

The difference between patios and decks is that patios usually have concrete or paved solid floors and decks are more usually raised wooden platforms. The basis of a choice between the two may be a question of taste or of circumstances. Some homes, built on uneven ground or a slope might not have a suitable surface upon which a level surface is able to be constructed. In which case they might require a platform raised above the ground, by mere inches or even by many feet. Wood is a preferred material for this sort of feature and, traditionally, is also the material used on boats from which this feature takes its name.

Both decks and patios are ‘extensions’ of the home’s solid base and comfort to an area immediately adjacent to the house. They serve the purpose of giving the house and ‘external room’, an open air living space, or merely a hard floored part of the garden where chairs and tables can easily be placed and the view appreciated. Both create a transition area between home and garden, inside and outside, and so both may include elements of domesticity and of nature.

Pressure treated wood is available and is popular for decking which is impregnated with chemicals to increase resistance to rotting and insect damage; although the treatment itself can prematurely age the wood and make it more susceptible to wear. Many hard woods have natural resistance, being solid and dense in structure but can be more expensive. Many people compromise by using wood composite decking; which looks like wood but is, in fact, an imitation made by compacting recycled plastic and wood mix. There is also fibreglass and other substitutes available.

The choices are almost endless, but whichever you decide upon patios and decks are a delightful, picturesque and highly functional addition to your home.