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Terraces Hartika > Guide

Guide

The purpose of the guide is to help with building terraces, fencing and designing balconies using composite wood.

The guide includes an overview of available WPC (Wood Polymer Composite) technologies.

You will find out how to tell the difference between a high quality PVC Hartika composite and less durable polyolefin based "substitutes".

For inspiration we have included beautiful photographs and expert advice.

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+48 86 444 20 20

hartika@hartika.com

Hartika Sp. z o.o.
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Przemysłowa 9 Street
PL 19-230 Szczuczyn

Composite decking

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Copyright by HARTIKA 2018, Designed & Developed by HORSEFIELD 2020

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The hartika.com website provides you with a tool which enables you to determine the necessary quantity of individual components of the planned terrace. At the beginning we suggest getting familiar with the elements of the HARTIKA TARASE decking system, colours and commercial length of terrace boards, the fitting system as well.

This information is available in the DOWNLOADS section or directly in the HARTIKA TARASE SYSTEM section. In order to plan the terrace well, it is necessary to follow several steps which will allow you to go through the HARTIKA TARAS CONFIGURATOR quickly and without any problems.

STEP 1

Plan where you want to place your dream terrace and sketch its appearance. Choose an arrangement of the boards, parallel to the wall of the building or perpendicular. The spacing between the joists must be 40 cm +/- 10 cm and we have used 50 cm as a typical spacing for foot traffic in the calculator. Of course, if you want to place heavy flower pots or hot tubs, you have to reduce the spacing between the joists or build a support structure.

You can lay the boards continuously or use a zipp-laying. Zip-laying means that you start the first row from the length L, e.g. 4m, and the next row from the length L/2, respectively 2m. Remember that you can lay the decking not only on a concrete screed but also on concrete supports directly on the ground, e.g. lawn, using concrete foundation blocks. In this case, you can use the large joist, which is designed for locally supported structures. The small joist is only used for mounting the terrace on the flat surface of the balcony or terrace directly on the screed. It is important that the base of your terrace is stable. Write down the shape and dimensions of your terrace and prepare to enter it into the configurator.

STEP 2

You have probably noticed that there are several types of decking on the website hartika.com, i.e. TARASE HOME, BASE and LIGNO 145 mm wide, TARASE KLASS 160 mm wide and TARASE PRO 210 mm wide. Each of these boards is suitable for building a terrace but the 210 mm board is a wide board with increased strength which is not always required. For walkways, house terraces and terraces in residences, all types of Hartika composite boards can be used. Details on how to lay the boards can be found in the DOWNLOADS section.

STEP 3

After entering the dimensions into our calculator you may be asked to choose the option to change (adjust) some of them. This is the case if you have chosen a board length of 4m and the terrace dimension is 4.3m. In this case, you can choose to either change the board length to 6 m or limit the terrace dimension to 4 m. Please ensure that the expansion gap is maintained for longitudinal thermal expansion of the composite decking. The distance between the boards should be at least 3-5 mm and, in relation to wall or column elements, not less than 5 mm for boards up to 4 metres long. Remember that when the temperature changes from -10℃ to +40℃, a 6-metre long board will change its length by at least 10-12 mm. Therefore, we recommend installing boards longer than 4 metres, paying special attention to the expansion gaps to fixed elements, always exceeding 5-8 mm. These expansion gaps are not included in the calculations.

You can also use a 3 m board for the calculation. Sometimes it is difficult to get a good performance from a 4m board and a 6m board is difficult to handle, transport and needs special attention because of the expansion joints. By cutting all 6m boards in half you can stack 3m boards and get a satisfactory performance while keeping the expansion joints as for a 4m board. The calculator will then give you the number of pieces for a 6m board. Remember, our standard length is 4m and 6m boards and these are available in stock.

STEP 4

The final result is a MATERIAL LIST of the HARTIKA TARASE decking system. The printout shows all components pieces, the surface of the decking and the theoretical output per board. We recommend that you always order 5-10% more mounting accessories in order to cover any shortages in the event that you lose or increase the number of clips.