Appreciation post: my neighbor told me my deck screws were wrong and saved me a rebuild
I spent all last summer building a deck in my backyard in Portland. Thought I was doing everything right, you know, following YouTube tutorials and all. Then my neighbor Bob, a retired contractor, walked over one Saturday and said 'hey, you know those screws are going to rust out in a year, right?' He pointed out I was using regular coated deck screws instead of hot-dipped galvanized ones for the ground-contact parts. I brushed him off at first, but then I looked closer and saw the coating was already flaking on a few of them near the posts. So I took his advice, pulled up the worst section, and replaced all the screws with the right kind before it got worse. Cost me about $40 more and a full weekend, but now I sleep better knowing the railing won't give out when someone leans on it. Has anyone else had a neighbor or friend point out a fix that saved you from a bigger problem down the road?