Chose galvanized straps over stainless for a beachside deck job

Had a client in Ventura who wanted a commercial deck done on a budget. I pushed for stainless since we were 200 yards from the ocean, but they said galvanized was fine. 8 months later I got a call about rust stains running down the support posts. Now I'm redoing the whole thing with stainless and the client is paying double. Anyone else have a spec battle with a client that came back to bite them?

3 comments

3 Comments

tyler_wilson2mo ago

Hold on though... galvanized can actually hold up fine if you use the right thickness and keep it off direct ground contact. I've seen plenty of coastal decks with galvanized that lasted years before any real trouble. Sounds like maybe the install had some other issues too, not just the straps.

kim_west2mo ago

Right, because nothing says "built to last" like hoping the zinc coating holds up long enough for the rust to forget where it lives. I've seen plenty of "years of service" too, usually followed by "until the salt air remembered it was there." Maybe the install was fine, maybe the straps were just on a tight schedule to get themselves retired early. Either way, galvanized and coastal air have a real "it's complicated" relationship.

barbaraw4728d ago

Oh man, that reminds me of a buddy who built a beautiful cedar deck right on the water in Maine back in 2015. He used all galvanized straps and joist hangers, thought he was set for decades. Two years later, I'm helping him pull up deck boards because the straps had turned into this weird powdery mess, flaking apart like old paper. The salt air just ate through the zinc like it was nothing, even though he did everything by the book. He ended up tearing the whole thing down and going with stainless steel hardware, cost him a fortune but he said he learned his lesson the hard way.