Choosing the Right Length Deck Boards

When the width of your deck is longer than the length of your boards, splicing is required.  If possible, you might want to consider longer boards if they are available.  Longer boards will reduce or eliminate splicing which saves labor, and in some cases may even save material costs.  For example, at the time of this writing, a nationally advertised provider of decking boards listed 5/4" thick, pressure treated, six inch wide deck boards that were $6.84 for 8' boards and $8.70 for 10' boards. In the graphic below, you can see where 10' boards only required 12 boards to cover the deck and 8' boards required 17 boards and 13 splices.  In this case, the 10' boards ended up costing less at $104.40 verses $116.28.