The following ideas occurred to me.

1. Place deck blocks on 4' in row spacing, 42 inches between rows.

2. Place 2x6 supports in the deck blocks. These go in the 42" direction.

3. Attach 2x4 supports to each side of the 2x6 The net effect is a tongue and groove beam with the tongue locking into the deck block. Attach end boards.

4. Cover with standard 48" x 42" pallets. The stringers of the pallets should be crossways to the joists.

5. Place fill strips if needed on pallets.

6. With a belt or floor sander go over the surface to take off the worst of the splinters.


This allows the following:

1. If the roof spills water onto the deck, then the boards there frequently get wet, and need more frequent replacement. This allows easy replacement.

2. The deck can be lifted off to paint or repair or do weed suppression on the space under the deck.

3. It also means that you can lift a pallet for painting the bottom side of the pallet. With a small wading pool it's practical to dip coat the deck.

4. Pallets wont last as long as PT wood. But pallets are often free for the asking. Redoing your deck is a matter of spending an afternoon with a utility trailer going through the industrial area of your local city. (Ask first.)

5. You're postponing putting pallets in the landfill, and saving trees for better uses.

This is a little beyond our scope. Out of practice, we do not recommend using any materials not rated for exterior use. This is not a cost or evironmental use as much as it is a safety issue. You will have a difficult time getting anything without exterior grade materials approved by building code. In addition, we do not recommend any spacing of the piers more than a 30in x 60in grid. Pallets are designed for an even distribution of load on the top and the botton. Using them as a spanned structural member would not be recommended. Also, the "rails" of a 48x42 pallet are located in the 48in direction. Spaning the 42in direction would only allow for the thin slats on the top and bottom to carry all of the weight.

I do not recommend building in this manner.


Deckman

I'm fortunate (or perhaps unfortunate depending on your view) to live where building codes aren't enforced.

All decks are temporary structures.

Pallets are frequently stored outside for extended periods of time.

A pallet structure that has easily replaceable/maintainable members is far less likely to cause injury than a conventional deck structure that gradually decays.

A pallet when lifted by a forklift has the entire load on two support edges. On the average this is half the span as my proposed use, which means 1/4 of the stress. On the other hand. I've seen these pallets at the source with a 3 foot high stack of concrete blocks on them. Concrete runs about 150 lbs/cubic foot, showing that the pallet is carrying roughly 450 lbs per square foot -- substantially over that of building standards. True this is a live load, not a dead load. But dead loads on decks are tiny.

I'm curious why the recommendation of no more than a 30x60 grid. I would expect that the grid spacing would be entirely dependent on the size of the beams, joists and compressibility of the ground.

The 30"x60" grid is the maximum spacing because of the following. 30 inches is the maximum allowable (by code) spacing for deck support boards. 60 inches is the farthest the blocks can be spaced along the support boards.


Deckman