Decking - to deck or not to deck?

[Joycey29]

Have a grotty patio by our conservatory that we want to deck over. We think extending a second tier of decking (linked by wide steps ) over a small section of our lawn would also be worth it to provide a sunny sitting spot.
Anyone decked?
Costs?
Problems?
Things to know??

i hate decking. It is slippery when wet and foxes and rats can nest under it.

That's the kind of info I need!
I just don't know how to improve what we have.

I'm going to use gravel , but the area concerned is not near the house.

The 'rat hotel' things that I have read on mn have really put me off decking. We used to have a bit of a rat problem in our garden but we haven't seen one since our neighbours built a huge great deck. Not sure its a coincidence.

On the plus side, its a quick and affordable way of sprucing up a tired patio. On the downside it's slippery in winter and hard work to keep it looking good. I love the space my decking has created but will be replacing it with paving as soon as I can sort side access with the neighbour, and can afford it.

You can get decking with built-in grippy bits but it's more expensive (obviously).

I've never had problems with rats caused by the decking but I do have two cats.

Thanks, may look at revamping patio and steps.

No problems with rats with ours and its been down 5 years. Its only slippery if you don't keep it clean - just a stiff brush and solution of warm water and fairy liquid and you'll get all the slime off.

I am not keen on decking myself. I prefer a nice patio.

Would jetwashing your current one help? or getting it relaid? we had patio redone when we moved but just jetwashed the paving stones that led down the path, they came up really nicely, hubby then refilled between them with some cementy stuff from a pot (I know nothing about these things) and it looked completely different.

If you are keen on jetwashing you need to see this

always worth jetwashing something before deciding if it needs replacing

there were a load of old rocks in our garden, many were half buried, must have been a sort of rockery in the long distant past but had sunk (house was built in the 1930s), anyway we dug them out, jetwashed them and discovered they were beautiful with fossils in so we then arranged them as a nice new rockery.

I hate my decking. Its really slippery in the winter and I have slipped on it. Its OK when you clean it with a brush and fairy liquid but when its raining a lot over the winter I don't get the chance to clean it often enough.

Might look at cleaning and extending current one.