"roger_millin" <[email protected]> wrote: >I've been looking for more interlocking black plastic deck tiles. Ideally >V-deck, but Versatile and Dri-deck would also interlock with V-deck if I >remember correctly (I seem to remember that they were clones of V-deck). I've >been unable to track down a supplier in the UK and yet these tiles were >readily available some years ago. The last time I bought some they were the >orangey-red red oxide colour in Versatile (used for the front well deck of >Albion) and we got them from a guy who used to trade from a little hut, on the >LHS, just as you were heading towards Tixall Wide from Great Haywood Junction. >Versatile still do a similar tile but they seem to have changed the method of >interlocking so aren't compatible. Does anyone know of a supplier of any of >these tiles or has anyone got about 54 b > lack ones they don't require any more?
I went through this a few years ago, for the foredeck of my barge. I was fed up with repainting, and it got too hot to walk on (in bare feet) in the summer. I looked into Dri-Deck. Nice stuff, no doubt, but the price ruled it out. I then came across an equivalent product at Homebase - "Garden Decking". 30 cm squares, 10 (or was it 11, to make ~1 m2?) to a pack, ~£9/pack. Not as pretty as Dri-Deck, no doodads (sloped edge pieces, corners, etc.) available, and only two or three colours (greys and greens), but I was sold. I got a light grey which looks good and keeps cool in the sun and it still looks like new after several seasons. Easy to install (cuts readily with a scroll saw, and trims with a hammer and chisel). Yes, it's a little unkind to the painted steel it sits on. Its little feet cause point wear. But I don't care, as I can't see it and rusting seems to be minimal. And crud (small vegetation slipping through the perforations in the tiles, slime, etc.) does accumulate below, but that's easy to deal with by lifting the stuff occasionally (it's very light) and hosing down the underlying deck. The only trouble is, I have a nasty suspicion that Homebase no longer sells it. I can't find it on the web site. When I bought it, it was available only at the large stores. Has anyone seen it recently? A question though. How is it that Homebase could sell it at 20% of the Dri-Deck price? Or, rather, just what margin is Dri-Deck getting? It can't cost very much to make. Adrian Adrian Stott 07956-299966
