Laying decking tiles on bare concrete?

Del2005

I've a small balcony (1.2x2.2m) and I want to make it look better. I've seen decking tiles in Woodies. Can these be laid directly onto concrete or would I need to lay plastic or something else under them? The balcony doesn't hold water after raining.

Fatswaldo

you can lay them directly on the concrete but it would be better if you had a bit of a tile/slate etc under each corner to raise them a little bit. This allows air to circulate and prevents rot. If the concrete is fairly smooth and level this would be fairly easy to do. Make sure you have a very slight fall on the decking away from the building to allow water to run off.

Del2005

Fatswaldo wrote: »

you can lay them directly on the concrete but it would be better if you had a bit of a tile/slate etc under each corner to raise them a little bit. This allows air to circulate and prevents rot. If the concrete is fairly smooth and level this would be fairly easy to do. Make sure you have a very slight fall on the decking away from the building to allow water to run off.

Thanks for the reply, the concrete is perfectly smooth. Never thought about a bit of tile underneath, could I use some hard plastic? I'd be screwing them onto the concrete, South facing with no wind breaks, so they'll need to be secure and I'm not too sure how good drilling through tile/slate would be.

I'm not planning on attaching to the building but will try a bit of a slope. Must get level out and hope balcony already has one!

Fatswaldo

The trick is to keep them out of the wet. Any non porus & non corrosive material will do. Plastic is fine. Try positioning the screws just beside a tile rather than through it. Good luck!