Decking Screws - Getting them Straight

Hi all,

Great info in here.

I'm after some advice on how best to get the screws for the decking boards lined up.

I'm putting down 140x19 boards on 90x45 joists. I've got around 30 boards with 15 joists so any time savers will be very useful.

From what I've read I need to progressively screw in each board from one end to the other to ensure it's flat and square. With that in mind I'm not sure how I'll line up the screws. I first thought of making up a jig but I saw on another thread here that this might not work if the joists aren't perfectly straight. Mine are pretty good but I'm sure they're not perfect.

I've seen a few suggestions to use a string line but I can't see how to do that other than putting it up and down for each joist and each board (that would make an already mammoth task ridiculous).

Any suggestions?

Also I was told by the timber merchant that for 140mm boards the sawmill recommends 9mm gap between the boards. Everything else I've seen seems to recommend 4-5mm gaps but maybe that's for 90mm deck. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.


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