Your deck is the one structure you walk out onto without thinking twice about it. We connect you with Wasatch Front contractors who treat it like framing that holds people up, not furniture you bolt to the house.
A deck is not furniture. It is framing that holds people up above the ground.
Tell us what is happening at your house and we will point you toward a contractor who does that specific kind of work.
Ground-up decks laid out for how you actually use the yard, then built from the footings up. Footing depth below frost, a flashed ledger at the house, joists sized for real spans, and stairs and guards detailed for your height above grade.
Learn more →When boards rot, posts shift, or the frame bounces underfoot, the fix depends on what is underneath. A contractor opens up the ledger and looks at the footings first, then tells you plainly whether you are repairing a sound structure or replacing a tired one.
Learn more →Shade changes the math. A roof or pergola adds wind and snow loading to framing and footings that were never sized for it, so a cover gets designed as a load path running from the top down through posts into ground that can hold them.
Learn more →Guards and stairs carry more code detail than the rest of the deck combined, and older ones often would not pass today. Post attachment, infill spacing, tread and riser consistency, landings, and a handrail your hand can actually close around.
Learn more →New decking over old framing only works if the framing earned it. Joist spacing, fastener type, and drainage get checked before the first board goes down, along with straight talk about heat, cleaning, and what each surface asks of you later.
Learn more →A new build, a deck that has aged out, a cover on an existing structure. Each is a different kind of job.
Those two things decide whether an existing deck is repairable. A contractor who only looks at the boards is telling you about the least important part.
Decks are structures. Expect a permit and an inspection, and expect the framing decisions to be made before anyone talks about decking color.
Most deck failures do not start at the surface. They start at the ledger, the board that fastens your deck frame to the house. If that connection was nailed instead of made with structural fasteners, or if it was never flashed, water works its way behind it and soaks into the rim joist. The rot that follows is slow, hidden, and it takes the whole connection with it. From above, the deck looks fine. Boards feel solid, the railing feels tight, and nothing warns you until there is weight on it.
So that is where the contractors we point you to begin. They pull a board or open the skirt when they need to, read the fastener pattern, and check whether flashing actually sheds water out over the siding instead of trapping it behind the ledger. On a new build, that detail gets settled long before anyone talks about decking color. On a deck you already own, it is usually the single finding that decides whether you are looking at a repair or a rebuild.
A deck is a structure, which means it generally requires a permit and an inspection, and the footings have to reach below the frost line. That depth is not paperwork. Water in the soil freezes, expands, and lifts whatever sits above it, and a footing that stopped short will move season after season until posts rack, stairs separate, and the door onto the deck stops latching the way it used to. Ground conditions and adopted requirements also shift from bench to valley floor, so what worked on a neighbor's lot is not automatically right on yours.
Above grade, the climate is just as hard on things. Dry summers, thin air, and intense sun break finishes down quickly, and south and west exposures weather first every time. Then winter turns whatever moisture found its way into the wood into freeze-thaw pressure that opens grain and splits cut ends. Wood needs periodic cleaning and re-coating to stay ahead of that. Composite asks less of you, but it is not maintenance-free, and it can get genuinely hot underfoot in full sun. Which surface belongs on your deck depends on where the deck faces.
Almost always. A deck is a structure that carries people above the ground, so it generally falls under permit and inspection requirements, and adopted codes vary from one city to the next along the Wasatch Front. A contractor who builds decks regularly handles the drawings and the inspection schedule for you. Confirm the specifics with your city building department before work starts.
Bounce is a framing message, not a surface problem. It usually means the joists are spanning farther than they comfortably should, or the beam under them is undersized or short on support. Replacing decking will not change it, and neither will screwing the existing boards down tighter. Someone needs to get underneath, look at spans and beam support, and address it at the frame.
Sometimes, and it is a good question to ask early. New decking is only worth installing over framing that is sound, spaced correctly for the material you want, and connected properly at the house. If the ledger was nailed, the footings are shallow, or the joists are soft at their ends, new boards simply hide the problem under a better-looking surface.
Three things repeat. Ledgers fastened with nails rather than structural fasteners, and often with no flashing behind them. Footings that never reached below frost depth or were sized for less deck than they carry. And guards that were built to what was normal at the time, with post attachment or infill spacing that would not pass a current inspection.
Maybe, but it is a structural question rather than a cosmetic one. A cover changes how wind and snow load the deck, and those loads travel down through new posts into framing and footings that were sized for an open deck. Someone has to verify the whole load path first. Call 801-644-9000 and we will connect you with a contractor who works that way.
Get the structure checked before you spend anything on the surface.
Start My Deck ProjectNew build, repair, cover, railings, or resurfacing, tell us which and we will take it from there.