Nails Vs Screws For Deck. It's a question people have been asking for some time. Every deck i know of has been built with nails and they seem to be fine. Unless you're willing to spring for structural screws, you will likely need both fasteners in your arsenal when doing your deck build.
You want them drawn tightly together so they don't come apart.
Roe osborn, a senior editor at jlc, responds: Are there any rules of thumb about when to use screws vs. Deck nails vs deck screws. Recently a deck collapsed near where i live and people got seriously injured. As their common name indicates. Deck screws are exceptionally engineered to hold two boards of wood together tightly and efficiently. There is a common misconception in the building industry that screws always outperform nails when attaching wood to wood. That's why i use deck screws instead of nails.
