My neighbor's advice to use drywall screws for deck boards cost me 6 weekends

So my neighbor Dave, who's been building stuff for 30 years, told me to use regular drywall screws on my deck instead of deck screws. Said it would save me $40 and hold just as fine. 8 months later I had 12 boards popping up and screw heads snapping off everywhere. Had to pull up 80 boards and redo the whole thing with proper deck screws. Anyone else been burned by a neighbor's "pro tip" that seemed too good to be true?

3 comments

3 Comments

wendyk5614h ago

Hold on, are we sure this is as bad as all that? I mean, drywall screws are pretty flimsy in my experience, but 12 boards popping up in 8 months seems a bit much unless you really cheaped out on the gauge or something. Could it be that the wood was wet or you didn't pre-drill enough? Not saying your neighbor was right, just wondering if maybe it's not the end of the world like everyone's making it out to be.

wadem8912h ago

Gotta push back a little here @wendyk56. Even if the wood was wet or predrilling was skipped, drywall screws just don't have the shear strength for deck boards. They're made to bite into drywall, not handle people walking on them and weather changing. 12 boards in 8 months is a lot, but that's exactly what happens when you use hardware that's too weak. Cheaper gauge or not, the shank of a drywall screw is brittle and snaps under lateral pressure. Grant's point about them sheering off is real, I've seen it happen too. It's not about the screws being flimsy in general, it's about using the wrong tool for the job.

grantmartinez13h ago

Wait, haven't you had deck screws sheer off on you @wendyk56? Drywall screws are way worse than you think.