Adding wood decking onto concrete porch

[joelpat]

I have a wrap around porch on my house, made up of a concrete slab about 8" thick. The slab spans about 7' from the Foundation wall that it sits on to a CMU pier. The slab sits about 1.5" below the bottom edge of the door thresholds. The porch is covered and stays pretty dry.

I'd like to add a wood deck on top of the concrete. If I can afford it, I'll use ipe decking. Understanding the problems associated with mixing wood and concrete, I want to lift the wood decking off of the concrete using sleepers. The problem is that I don't have a lot of room to work with before I am at the threshold height.

Here is my thought, and I'd appreciate any suggestions anyone might have:
Cut dados into the concrete surface, 1.5"wide and .5" deep. Use sleepers to lift the ipe decking about 1/4" off the concrete. Add an ipe facia on the exposed edges of the deck to dress it up.

Questions:
Will cutting 1.5"x.5" dados into the concrete surface weaken the slab substantially?
How does one cut 1.5"x.5" dados into a slab? We'd be talking about 375' linal feet of cutting.
Could the sleepers be made of PT wood, or should I use a composite decking material?
Is there a better way to go about this?

[RyanVT]

wow.......really want to dado your slab?

How about strips of 1/2" PT plywood as sleepers - 16"o.c. with the IPE decking over it.

downside - may have to power drive all deck boards or......

use some kind of hiden attachment product that is available.

.....just a thought

[Cole]

I wonder how this turned out, 2 years later.

[David]

I wonder how this turned out, 2 years later.


2 years? Huh?

[Cole]

2 years? Huh?

Oh I thought the date said 2004.:oops:

[David]

I am curious how it turned out, though.