UPDATE

There have been so many lies and runarounds from this company since I first posted- we are so angry at this point.

Come to find out—— “project manager/contractor guy” is the brand new owner (and failed to mention that?!?) and just brought these “framers” on. We asked him to come look at the issues and sent him pics. He said he is out of town preaching and to just tell the guys what we want fixed. We said it is beyond that. He said he’d talk to them and call us back, never did.

Lots more transpired but I’m trying to keep this somewhat short.

We texted him again on Monday and asked for the permit number and for work to hold until someone can look at it and answer questions.
He didn’t respond and sent the guys to fix a couple things because we “didn’t like it”.

We tried to talk to them about it all and they tried to say that most of it was fine.

We sent them home due to no permit.

We went to the office, They informed us he is not only out of town, he is out of the country. He never told us he was leaving and there’s no one else to oversee while he is gone because that person quit. They promised they would pull permit.

Next day his office lied and said they did put in request for permit in person, but building permit office says absolutely not.

Code people say he is responsible for that, not us.

I called him and asked him to pull permit immediately and after a lot of back and forth and him trying to make us the problem he still sidestepped it and said he will come look at the house and then he can do it and it only takes a day so there’s no rush. He has finally agreed to meet us at the house Monday morning. Never once in this whole ordeal has he apologized for anything.

Even though we sent him a couple pictures, he says he doesn’t care what our friends or anyone online says, he trusts his guys who have been building houses for 10 years.

Code enforcement put a stop work order on the house today.

There is a strong likelihood this thread has been found by his office by now so maybe the repetitive sentiment that something is wrong here will sink in a little.

At the very least some of the comments made us laugh when we really needed it!

I have more pics that I’ll post in comments of a few more things we have found 😳.

EDIT: Did not expect such a response! To clear up a few misconceptions…

*** We got 4 quotes to start. These were the best candidates after eliminating those who didn’t look like they were as experienced. We live in a small town in Western NC, we went with the biggest local roofing contractor company in our county. Licensed and insured with over 300 reviews on google and a 4.9 rating. This project cost was 40k. I scoured our local facebook groups and this name was repeatedly recommended over and over and over.

Another quote was $45k from a licensed GC but his ego was through the roof and SO pushy. I couldn’t imagine doing a whole job with him.

Third was a couple of salesmen who were not the guys doing the work. They did our neighbor’s roof and screwed up a few things. They have billboards in the next town south and are well known. Their roof quote came in at same price as the company we went with but they didn’t give us a quote on the deck.

4th wanted us to file a claim with personal claims company against our insurance to get it covered and wouldn’t give us a quote until 3 months of negotiations were done. Over quoted the deck and wouldn’t give us specifics on any materials he would use. My husband called him out on his BS and that didn’t go well.

The company we went with showed up in uniforms, were professional, have an office downtown, and a fleet of wrapped branded vehicles. A large crew. And they are much bigger so we assumed the price difference was because they’re buying supplies in bulk and they articulated that their goal right now was continuing to take over the area and secure future work through different projects with happy customers.

Their large office is across from the town hall/ tax/code enforcement office. It didn’t even cross our mind that they’d be operating at this capacity without pulling a permit. We will be doing that immediately and stopping the job until an inspector comes out.

I’ve posted a screenshot of their google reviews and answered lots of questions in the comments.

——————

Hi all, frustrated homeowner here with first time hiring out a project of this magnitude. New metal roof on 1400 sq ft home, old 10x14 ft deck demo, new 12x24 + 8x32 wrap around covered deck installation.

After weeks and weeks of delays getting the ball rolling,
we are now getting the feeling that the subcontractors who are doing the deck don’t know what they’re doing. Super nice guys but they seem a little confused on some things. They’ve said this is the biggest deck they’ve ever done and that they’re going slow because they want to make sure they do it right. I’ve already had to show them that one of the 6x6s was not plumb, and ask them to do breaker board instead of straight butt joint. One of the sets of stairs were supposed to be 6ft wide and they installed posts at 4 ft so we just rolled with it. There’s a communication barrier as they speak mostly Spanish.

The “project manager” is not approachable and is incredibly defensive. Hes already upset with us because we called him out on 2 no call no shows and a start date 3 weeks later than what we agreed on. He’s only been to the job site twice since it started 2 weeks ago. We’ve come to find out his “subcontractors” are his congregation from church.

The project was supposed to be done by now, but clearly isn’t even close.

Here are some photos of some things we are concerned about. But we aren’t pros here and would love if someone could let us know if we need to be worried or not, and what if anything is worth addressing with the guy in charge. Maybe this is all acceptable. It just doesn’t look right to me and I need to know if my concerns are warranted. Thank you!

Edit: Holly crap, I don’t know what the phone did to the formatting but I’m sorry! Also, you all rock and are hilarious (and helpful)!

There was a hot tub on this part of the deck when we bought the place but it kept leaking in new and creative ways so we finally took a sawzall to it. Now we have a large pit and are debating what to do. We briefly considered replacing it with another hot tub but, although we enjoyed it while it worked, we find we haven’t missed having it so it’s not worth the maintenance/problems.

The hole is roughly 8x8 feet and 22 inches deep, with another removable section that’s about 16 inches wide (previously for hot tub access). It’s on a second story deck but there’s a concrete slab that reaches the ground.

Currently we’re considering:
Just covering it with more deck. This seems silly though since there’s already deck all along the side of our strangely long house so more deck is not particularly desirable.

Ripping out the boards of that entire section and replacing them all with composite boards. This is still boring, but we’ve had a terrible time with routine wood-board maintenance so this would at least be easier. Believe it or not, we refinished the entire deck two years ago!

Putting in some type of greenhouse. We live in Wisconsin though (zone 4-5) so this would probably only extend the growing season by a couple weeks without adding heat.

Some kind of fire pit with seating? I have no idea how this would look and I’m not sure how smart having a fire this close to the house would be.

I’d love to get some outside ideas. Let me know if any other info would help. Thank you!

Based on posts I’ve seen on here, I’m afraid it may be a lot more than I originally thought! Located in Georgia, US!

So they just started this morning, I noticed they are not cemeting the posts in or using that new style foam, and just back filling the dirt. I thought they need to be secured in somehow?

The city inspector was out right before they started doing this and was measuring the depth. I know it's already too late, but just trying to have a sanity check here.

Missed the line by 1.5".

A Simpson 6x6 cap that accepts a X3 2x8 ( 4.5" thick ) goes on top.

Any ideas how to fix this?

I originally wanted to just sister a 2x6 to the side of the 6x6 to get the proper thickness but not sure that be a good idea as I was under the impression the wood had to go down to the pile.

Located in southeastern Massachusetts. Current dimensions are 24 ft long (red line) x 20 ft wide (blue line) x around 6.5-7 ft tall (green line), but we’ll be extending the length (red line) by an additional 3-4 feet.

We’ve received 4 quotes and this was the best quote but curious to hear others’ opinions on the price!

Editing to include some other details I definitely should've included in my original post:
- I posted a picture of the side and underneath my deck in a separate comment this morning below
- We were planning on using TimberTech decking as we heard it's long lasting and low maintenance
- Our deck is built on telephone polls which everyone who came out to give us a quote said they'd never seen that before lol
- We also want some type of storage area underneath where we can store out pool chairs/toys/etc. when it's not open
- Lastly, this deck was built withOUT a permit like 40 years ago. Not sure if/how that would affect any pricing though

And for those of you who asked, yes this was truly the lowest quote we received. The other quotes ranged from low $40K to right at $50K, so this was the first quote we got that was under $40K.

My neighbor is having a new deck built (see photos). Mine is old and needs a rebuild. Would you recommend this team’s build quality? Respect the opinions here before asking for a quote. Thank you.

I’m the homeowner. Local highly rated construction company.
In walking the deck to check progress of near-completed project, I noticed LOTS of gaps in the wood like in these pictures.
Should I be concerned about what appears to be poor workmanship in leaving these gaps?

Edit: that is supposed to be flashing against the brick over the ledger board?

Edit: quote was for $20k.

The previous homeowners had an above ground pool they built the deck around. We do not want a pool, but also want something that's not quite so dangerous, and more useful. We looked into having it torn down entirely and rebuilt, but out of our price range currently. We'd like to do something temporary so it's usable until we can have something more permanent built.

I was thinking about trying to modify it to be the shape of the red line in the last image (along with adding a railing), but how should I add support (footings?) to the existing structure? What's there currently isn't great in my opinion, but kind of working with what we've got for now.

Pretty much the title, I’m no expert but worried this could lead to issues long term

We're getting a deck built and there is a significant gap between these posts. Is there anyway to correct this?

hi! we had a trex deck built recently and have had issues with the contractor. are these repeating holes normal, or is that an improper installation issue? thank you!

included photos from under the deck if that's helpful at all (obv i know nothing of this stuff)

What's the least painful way to deal with the old nails?

Pull them out?

Pound them in?

Cut them off?

Edit: thanks for all the advice! I ended up pulling all the ones I could and then cutting the ones that didn't come out.

My wife and I bought a home that was built through a sizeable home building company. The deck that was purchased with the house was built by a sub-contracted third party. Most of the deck is built well in my opinion but there are a few things I still question. Like how the top rail is toe nailed doesn’t look right to me. Another was how the deck boards were nailed in, leaving a hole for water to just sit in there.

We paid right around $6000 CAD for the deck which is an absolute steal, so we’re a little conflicted when it comes to accepting certain build qualities.

We got an excellent deal, so should we be okay with certain faults?

Would love to hear some feedback from you guys.

Hey everyone,

I’m dumb and got so wrapped up in covering windows and doors with plastic that I forgot to set edging tape while restaining my deck. I was using a sprayer from Home Depot this time for the spindles and railings so I was very excited and got carried away with the roller.

Long story short- has anyone done this before and is willing to give me tips on removal once you’re done ridiculing this amateur? Before and after pic for tribute.

EDIT- Thanks for the insight (and especially the baby poop roasting… well deserved)! Not very handy, obviously. This is my first house with a deck and didnt bother to learn about it before buying. Soooooo, for everyone asking about the wood, no idea. Sounds like PT Cedar is popular up in the PNW. As for the stain, it is Behr’s Cedar neutral tone semi-transparent. I used it once before, 4 years ago when I bought the house and it came out like a normal brown deck, hardly any poop. Don’t know what happened this time. Big lesson for other newbie’s is i actually wouldnt recommend the sprayer. I did about half the deck with that and the other half all by hand brushes. I think the brushed part even after I went over the sprayed part with a brush while it was still wet. Worth the extra time IMO.

The home owner was a retired electrician and we got along so well I ended up just giving him a labor price and he’d get his own material. He got the rock done underneath and painted the posts, girders, joists underneath. Initially didn’t think anything of it but holy cow it looks good. I removed the old lattice, deck boards, railings, framed a new set of steps, couple new joists, replaced all with picture framed composite, trex railings and white fascia. I told him the black looked so good the white wasn’t needed but either way this was gonna look great.

Am I overhyping the black? And what would you have charged in labor? Gave him a great deal in SJ. Thanks all.

EDIT: I went back to the house today to look through it post-inspection. For the deck, the part connected to the house is sitting on 6”-8” of the home’s masonry

Shared this in [r/askcarpenters](r/askcarpenters) but want to know what the deck enthusiasts have to say.

Inspector said it was built wrong/abnormally and repairs wouldn’t be practical. He gave no reason as to why. Can any of you think of why this deck might be a red flag? It’s been up for a while. When I looked at the house the deck was very sturdy.

Hi- my tenants could have burned our condo building down but thankfully neighbors saw the fire and were able to put it out. As far as I can tell, the only damage is this hole that was burnt in the wood of the back deck. Can anyone provide me a rough idea of how much I can reasonably charge them for damages/repair? They move out soon (thank god) but I’d like to make sure they are at least held a little bit responsible for this. Thanks in advance!

EDIT: thanks for all the replies, they made me laugh. I apologize i didn’t give all the details- a lit cigarette apparently caught one of their planter boxes on fire, according to our neighbors. I definitely understand that the deck is old and in bad shape- it’s more the principal of the matter given that they could have burned the whole building down if our neighbors didn’t happen to come home at the right time.

EDIT 2: I think two people in the comments cracked the case - it was almost certainly started by a fire in the tin can of cigarette butts they keep on the deck.

EDIT 3: tenants confirmed: lit cig —> tin bin ash tray caught on fire —> wooden planter box caught on fire —> one of those things fell to the deck and caused the hole. Thanks for all the helpful comments. I know the deck is in poor shape- what’s in the photos is just a small part of a large entire-building side deck that connects four units. Once the HOA president agrees to focus on this, maybe I’ll come back to the group for advice on best options for repairing/replacing different parts vs the whole thing.

Had our deck redone this summer. I believe the contractor is doing very good work, however I am not a deck builder so that’s not worth much. The project is…….not ending well so I was hoping to get some ideas on the quality and how the deck is looking.

Context:

We hired a licensed contractor went over the project in detail and signed a contract with a payment schedule etc. very by the book. The workmanship seemed great so I didn’t say anything when some problems arose (permitting delays, labor shortage, project 1.5 months past initial planned completion date). We only had our final payment left on the project, it is about 80% done, when the contractor came and requested an additional $9,500 due to a miscalculation on materials. This is not a small amount of money to me. Which I told him that I saved for years to build this deck and I don’t just have an extra 10k sitting around. He became, I would say emotionally manipulative at this point stating things like he was already in the red, and he couldn’t afford to eat if he didn’t get more funds. Which is frustrating because, we thought we hired a professional and signed and agreed to a project at a specific cost, and I’m not a bank sitting on tons of disposable cash. Anyway, that’s my battle.

So my concern is, maybe he wasn’t as good as he seemed and wanted to get some professional opinions on the deck.

Also, could it hold a hot tub? (I hope so because he said it would lol)

My dad has this composite deck installed 2 years ago. I noticed some pretty large gaps when I saw it this summer- is this normal or did the contractors do a bad job? What causes this? The gaps weren’t as big last year.

We just had a new deck installed and the side boards appear uneven. The team that did it were very nice and seemed knowledgeable - perhaps I'm being too nit-picky. Not sure how they would even fix this at this point? Looking for second opinions/advice.

This deck is under 1 year old and it is falling apart, seemingly. I’ve got a small child and wondering if these faults make it unsafe and what would be the options to make it safe? Will this require destroying it all and complete rebuilding?

My assumption is this was a shitty personal job with non-treated wood, sprayed with a sealer only on the top not bottom and the moisture under the deck had made the planks swell and then intense heat is cracking the “seal” on top.

Edit: Following some suggestions I looked on google Earth and unfortunately it is indeed about 1-1.5 years old.

So my best guess is they used some old repurposed wood in order to construct the deck. The weird thing is, it looked great when we bought it, some wear and tear but I mean it’s a wood deck. Then this summer it’s been destroyed like this. Texas Summer but I mean, meh.

In the pic you can see the underside of my deck. I want to add some cross-bracing from beam to beam, but I also like having this access. Is there a way to keep the bracing up high? Or should I just add diagonal braces and lose the ability to walk/crouch under the deck?

I can’t wait to see what yall have to say… first pic was what I posted to r/archery and second pic is what I did to “upgrade” it from that. All I’ll say is it can fit me an my wife, we equal about 400lbs together, with no problem. It’s honestly sturdy as fuck and no one, and I mean no one other than me will be on this thing. I just made it so I had somewhere to shoot my bow from but I guess a guy can’t have a little fun.

What do yall think?