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Spent 2 years driving deck screws at an angle before my neighbor asked why I was pre drilling everything twice
Last Saturday I was putting down new boards on my back steps in Fort Wayne and my neighbor Dale wandered over with his coffee like he does. He watched me drill a pilot hole, drive the screw, then back it out and redrive it because the head sat proud. Asked me why I do that every time.
I told him that's just how I learned, angle the screw so it pulls the board tight. He laughed and said I was fighting the wood the whole time. Turns out the cheap 2x6s I buy at the yard are still wet, and wet treated lumber shrinks as it dries, so my tight angled screws were just splitting around the heads by fall.
He showed me how he butts the boards tight, drives straight down with a star bit, and lets the wood do what it wants. Did 14 feet of steps in under an hour and nothing popped. Two years of redriving screws and it was the lumber, not my aim.
Anybody else deal with green treated boards pulling their screws after a season? Do you gap them or jam them tight?
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