How to replace bad deck boards

If they were put in with screws, a drill bit and driver set in reverse. If they were put in with nails -can you get under the deck, if so, take a hammer and beat the boards back up. Otherwise a crowbar from the top. A long crowbar gives more leverage, get a board underneath it and use as a fulcrum also not to damage good boards. You really need to see how they were attached. It may be the top is just really weathered and they can be sanded if wood or flipped. If rotten, cut out between the joists to get to it. Do not cut the joist.

Your deck boards are either screwed on or nailed on. You can remove the screws and the boards will come right up and can be replaced with boards of the same size. If your deck boards are nailed on it is A LOT tougher to get them off! We recently replaced ALL of the floor boards on our deck that were nailed on--and the nails were about 6 inches long!! (30 year old deck). We had to pound from underneath to get the nails to pop up and then we removed them with the claw end of the hammer or we kept pounding until they came up enough so we could pry them off. Some boards we had to cut into smaller sections to get them out. We had to work from the outside of the deck to the inside and it would have been very difficult if we were just replacing boards here and there due to the size of the nails and the effort it took to remove the boards. So---check to see how your floor boards are fastened to your deck--if you are lucky they are screwed on and you can easily remove the screws.

My deck has to be close to yours in age. I need to replace a few. Thanks for the info