THE Hunter inventor of a new decking system believes it can slash by at least half the time involved in building a deck.
Carpenter Peter Hass came up with the idea for Decktec while he was doing a deck for a client in 2015.
“It was the middle of summer, I was on my knees all day in the sun and fixing every decking board to every joist, and I just thought there has to be something,” he says.
He searched online and in stores for an alternative before hitting the drawing board. About 18 months later he had a prototype for Decktec, a finalist in the HIA Hunter Housing awards 2018 for new product innovation.
Decktec is a deck spacing assembly that sits on the joist of a deck and allows a builder to lay boards with precision. Protecting the joists and allowing the timber to move, it has fixed and removable spacers and can be used with all natural timbers.
Mr Hass said a key benefit was that once laid down, boards can be laid from multiple positions rather than just one point as is standard: “If you have to lay a beer garden in one day, there’s never been a way you can work from two ways, but using this you can have 10 tradies on one deck – no other system allows that,” he says.
Decktec is for sale in some independent hardware stores, is exporting to NZ and intends to soon be in Canada, the US and UK.
Not bad considering that when Mr Hass and his mate and Decktec general manager Steve Byrnes travelled to Chinaplas, the largest plastics and rubber fair in Asia, all appeared doomed.
“We were looking to see if the product could be manufactured at all because it’s a long skinny piece of plastic for the deck strip, and there are not many of those, and we were told it couldn’t be done,” says Mr Byrnes.
Back in Australia, the duo were flat but after “headbutting a lot of doors” and due diligence, they found a Sydney manufacturer.
Decktec can be used when replacing existing decking boards that are binding, cupping or rotting. Mr Hass says its biggest market will be for tradies, but that it will also appeal to DIYers.
“Once you get it down, you can’t go wrong,” he says.
