Deck Railing in East Westwood, OH

East Westwood (ZIP 45211) covers houses of many different ages, and the timber in and around their decks varies every bit as widely. One thing that turns up regularly is incised lumber, and it matters far more in a guard than it does anywhere else on the structure.

Incising is a grid of small slits cut into the surface so preservative can get into a species that otherwise resists it. It is a good process and it does what it is meant to. It also leaves a visible, feelable texture across every face of the piece. In a frame that is completely irrelevant, because nobody is going to look at a joist again after the boards go down. A guard is different. The cap is the surface a hand closes around every time somebody uses the deck, the posts are at eye level, and the balusters are two feet from where people sit.

So the timber gets specified for the position it is going in. Where a species is available uncised in the sections a guard needs, that goes on the cap and the posts and the incised material stays in the frame where it belongs. Where it is not, the answer is a cap in a different material entirely, which is a common and good-looking solution: an incised post with a smooth hardwood or composite cap on it reads as a designed detail and gives the hand something better to hold. Either way it is decided at the order, not discovered when the guard is up.