.png)
Porcelain Tiled Deck on the Silca System — Titirangi
A deck at the back of a Titirangi house, built as an extension of it, sitting 2 m above a steep bush slope with views across the Auckland harbour. Access was through the garage and nowhere else. The pine on top was rotting. Everything underneath it was not. Two weeks, and the structure never came out.
What was there before
An old pine deck, rotting on top. We opened it up and looked properly at what was underneath: no movement, no rot, well built, good fixings, framing sizes that were right, and sound posts. That is the whole reason this job was a re-surface and not a rebuild. It needed some blocking to strengthen and nothing else structural. The deck itself was worth keeping; only the surface had failed.
What the client wanted
A lounge and spa area on a surface hard enough for weather off a bush gully, and quiet enough not to compete with the view it sits in front of. The clients wanted the cost down and were willing to work for it, so they took the demolition, the frame strengthening and the prep themselves, and they installed the spa. We took the surface.
What made it hard
The deck is roughly a triangle, so most of the border needed custom cuts and almost none of them repeated. The hardest was the corner of the triangle, where several different lines had to meet in one complex shape. Access was through the garage, the only way in for every grate, tile and tool. And the spa is 2 × 2 m and about 1.5 to 2 tonnes filled, which is a point load rather than a surface load.
What the Silca System is, and what we did with it
The Silca System is structural grating that lets a tiled or stone surface sit on a timber deck. The 400 × 400 grates screw straight down to the existing joists with stainless steel fixings, interlocking connectors tie the layout together, and tiles spot-bond to the grates with a high-flex adhesive. There is no new substructure and no pedestals: the deck you already own becomes the frame. It is made in New Zealand from 100 percent recycled material and rated to B1/VM1 and B2 of AS/NZS 1170.1. And because the finished surface stays permeable it can come up level with a door threshold rather than stepping down from it, so the deck reads as part of the room rather than a platform outside.
We laid 400 × 400 grates across the strengthened frame, fixed with stainless steel screws, then glued 600 × 600 structural porcelain over them with 3 mm gaps so water drains straight through rather than sitting on the surface. Every border tile was cut to its own angle. Two weeks from first grate to last tile, with the substructure untouched and the spa on the frame the clients strengthened.
Consents, and who did what
No consent was needed on this job. The clients had a builder assess the frame before anything went down, and we advised extra posts and framing under the spa, which the clients installed. Silca System referred us to the job, and the structural porcelain was supplied by the clients. Our scope was the grates and the tiling.
What made it hard
The deck is roughly a triangle, so most of the border needed custom cuts and almost none of them repeated. The hardest was the corner of the triangle, where several different lines had to meet in one complex shape. Access was through the garage, the only way in for every grate, tile and tool. And the spa is 2 × 2 m and about 1.5 to 2 tonnes filled, which is a point load rather than a surface load.
What the Silca System is, and what we did with it
The Silca System is structural grating that lets a tiled or stone surface sit on a timber deck. The 400 × 400 grates screw straight down to the existing joists with stainless steel fixings, interlocking connectors tie the layout together, and tiles spot-bond to the grates with a high-flex adhesive. There is no new substructure and no pedestals: the deck you already own becomes the frame. It is made in New Zealand from 100 percent recycled material and rated to B1/VM1 and B2 of AS/NZS 1170.1. And because the finished surface stays permeable it can come up level with a door threshold rather than stepping down from it, so the deck reads as part of the room rather than a platform outside.
We laid 400 × 400 grates across the strengthened frame, fixed with stainless steel screws, then glued 600 × 600 structural porcelain over them with 3 mm gaps so water drains straight through rather than sitting on the surface. Every border tile was cut to its own angle. Two weeks from first grate to last tile, with the substructure untouched and the spa on the frame the clients strengthened.
Consents, and who did what
No consent was needed on this job. The clients had a builder assess the frame before anything went down, and we advised extra posts and framing under the spa, which the clients installed. Silca System referred us to the job, and the structural porcelain was supplied by the clients. Our scope was the grates and the tiling.
Why it cost what it cost
The clients saved roughly half the cost of the job doing the demolition, the frame strengthening and the spa install themselves. It tired them out. What they could not do was the part that decides whether a tiled deck lasts: heavy grates handled in a confined space with one way in, screwed to a frame that has to stay true, and a triangular border where every cut is different and a millimetre out shows.
What the client said
We were recommended to use Franc Landscapes and WOW we are so happy we did! The team were always on time, polite and very very patient with our old dogs, plus they did an amazing job. Thank you Kevin and Hunter for making our space so beautiful.
Book a site assessment