A freshly restained deck on a custom log home, boards running the width of the frame against the log wall with the railing at one side.
Booking spring builds now

Deck Building
& Restoration
in Dayton, Ohio

New decks, replacements, and the restoration of decks worth saving. A deck is only as good as the frame and the footings under it, which is the part you stop being able to see the day it is finished. Get the design and the permit settled over winter and the build happens as soon as the ground allows.

Get a Free Estimate Call (937) 888-WORK
We build
  • New decks
  • Replacements
  • Restoration
  • Railings and stairs
  • Composite
  • Covered patios
What we do

A deck is mostly the part you cannot see

Boards are the easy half. What decides whether a deck lasts fifteen years or five is the footings, the posts, the ledger where it meets the house, and whether every one of those connections was built to stay dry. We are a general contractor, so the framing, the concrete, the carpentry and the electrical for the outlet you actually want out there are all one crew.

A deck replacement in Beavercreek, Ohio with most of the new boards down over the frame, tools still on the surface and the brick house behind. Work in progress
Boards going down in Beavercreek. Everything that decides how long this deck lasts is already underneath it, and about to be out of sight for good.

  • New deck builds

    From the footings up. We size the footings for the load and the frost line, set the posts on standoff bases so the cut ends never sit in water, and build the frame before anyone thinks about board color.

  • Deck replacement

    When the boards have gone, the framing underneath usually is not far behind. A replacement should not inherit anything from the deck it replaces, so it all comes out, decking and framing both, and the new one starts at the ground.

  • Restoration, staining and coating

    Plenty of decks do not need replacing. Power washed back to clean wood so the coating bonds into the grain instead of sitting on top of it, rotted boards and soft rail sections swapped out first, then stained or coated.

  • Railings, stairs and gates

    The parts people actually touch, and the parts that fail first. Rails, post tops and stair treads replaced, handrail profiles routed to match what is already there so a repair does not read as a patch, and self-closing gates where they are needed.

  • Composite decking

    If you would rather not stain a deck every few years, composite is the answer, with a matching composite railing so the whole thing ages at the same rate. We will walk you through where composite is worth it and where pressure-treated pine and a good coating does the same job.

  • Covered patios and porch conversions

    A roof over the deck, or a front porch turned into something you can put furniture on. Framing, roof tie-in, and the flashing where the new structure meets the old one, which is the detail that decides whether it leaks.

Where a deck earns its life

The frame decides everything

A deck fails from underneath. Water gets into the cut end of a post standing in wet ground, or in behind the ledger where the deck meets the house, and by the time it shows on the surface the framing has been going for years. So this is what goes into one of ours.

  • A ledger lagged to the house with half-inch bolts and flashed, so water cannot get in behind it
  • Pressure-treated ground-contact posts, every one on a galvanized standoff base that holds the cut end up out of the wet
  • Footings sized for the load and taken below the frost line, on a compacted base that drains
  • Joists at sixteen inch centers, each carried in a galvanized hanger rather than resting on nails
  • Joist tape over the cut tops of the framing, where fasteners open the grain to water
  • Decking screwed down, not nailed, because a screwed board is still tight after ten wet and dry seasons
  • A coating over the finished surface, or composite if you would rather never do it again
  • Everything old in a dumpster, not buried under the new deck

A change order that went the other way

On a deck replacement in Beavercreek the contract called for the usual deep footings: six holes down past the frost line, tube forms, gravel, concrete, anchor bolts set in the top.

Partway through, we changed the plan. The deck went onto six shallow formed pads instead, each one excavated, built on a compacted base, formed in pressure-treated lumber and poured with the anchor bolt set while the concrete was still wet. That put twice as much concrete under every post as the original design, spread as a wide pad rather than a narrow column.

It also cost less than the plan it replaced, and the difference went back to the homeowner as a credit. The change was written up, sent and approved in writing the same morning, before any concrete went in.

Most people have only ever seen a change order move in one direction. It does not have to.

A deck frame mid-build: joists on sixteen inch centers with black joist tape over every cut top, the first deck boards going down at the house, and crew working. Work in progress
Step five, before anyone sees a board. Joists on sixteen inch centers, every one in a galvanized hanger, and black tape over each cut top so the fasteners are not an open door for water. This is the half of a deck that decides how long it lasts, and it is the half nobody photographs.
How it goes

Settle it in winter, build it in spring

  1. Walk the yard with us

    Any month of the year. We look at where the deck wants to go, how the ground falls, where the door is, and what the house gives us to attach to. The walkthrough and the estimate are free.

  2. Scope in writing

    An itemized scope you can read line by line: framing, footings, decking, railings, stairs, and anything electrical. Board and railing choices get made here rather than on the morning the truck arrives.

  3. Permit, and your place in the queue

    Where a deck needs a building permit we pull it and follow it up. This is the part worth doing in January, because the paperwork does not care about the weather and the schedule fills from the front.

  4. Footings, when the ground allows

    Concrete is what the weather actually gates. Once the ground is workable the footings go in, and from there the job runs continuously rather than in gaps between frosts.

  5. Frame, then deck

    Ledger flashed, posts on their bases, beams, joists in hangers, tape over the cut tops. Then the boards go down over a frame that was built to outlive them.

  6. Rails, stairs and finish

    Railings, stairs and gates, then the coating or the stain, then the site. If something turns up mid-job it goes into a change order in writing before it happens, in whichever direction it moves the price.

Proof

Three decks, photographed on the job

One taken out and rebuilt from the footings, one porch turned into a composite deck, one restored and restained rather than replaced. All finished, all ours, all photographed rather than described.

A finished front porch converted to a composite deck in Dayton, Ohio, with dark composite boards and a matching composite railing with black balusters. Composite
Dayton, Ohio

A front porch that became a deck

A front porch converted to composite decking, with a matching composite railing and black balusters so the rail ages at the same rate as the boards. Composite is the answer for anyone who would rather not stain a deck every few years, and three of the last dozen people who called us about a deck asked about it by name.

A freshly stained exterior staircase climbing a landscaped hillside to the wraparound deck of a custom log home, with stone retaining walls on either side. Restoration
Custom log home

The deck that did not need replacing

A client we first worked for five years earlier, when we stained the whole cabin, called us back. Five winters had left some of the wood needing only a fresh coat and some of it past saving. We replaced weathered top rails, post tops and stair treads, routed the new handrail to match the existing profile so the repairs would not read as patches, braced a main deck that had started separating from the house, then power washed and restained the lot.

Read the write-up

Three finished decks, all of them ours. Two link to the full write-up behind them. When the next deck is done it goes here too, and not before.

Service area

Where we build

Pick a day on the calendar and we come out and walk the yard, any month of the year. We cover Dayton and everywhere inside about 25 miles of it.

  • Dayton
  • Oakwood
  • Riverside
  • Moraine
  • Kettering
  • Huber Heights
  • West Carrollton
  • Trotwood
  • Beavercreek
  • Vandalia
  • Centerville
  • Miamisburg
  • Washington Township
  • Englewood
  • Fairborn
  • Bellbrook
  • Tipp City
  • Springboro
  • Xenia
  • Troy
  • Middletown
  • Springfield

Limitless Construction

5597 Webster Street, Dayton, OH 45414

(937) 888-WORK  ·  office@limitlessdayton.com

Phone answered 24 hours a day.

Questions

What homeowners ask us

Does my deck need replacing, or can it be restored?

Look for four things. Rot you can push a finger through, rather than a board that is merely soft. Boards that cup, lift, or pull their fasteners loose. Weeds growing up through the gaps, because anything living in there has a constant water supply and so does the rot. And a surface where washing and resealing no longer change anything.

One of those in one spot is a repair. All of them across the whole deck usually means the framing has gone too, and by then you are not buying boards, you are buying a deck.

It is winter. Is there any point calling now?

Winter is the right time to call, not the wrong one. The walkthrough, the written scope, the material choices and the building permit all happen regardless of weather, and none of them care about frost.

What the weather actually gates is the concrete. Get everything else settled over winter and your footings go in as soon as the ground is workable, which puts you near the front of the queue instead of behind everyone who waited for the first warm weekend to start thinking about it.

Composite or pressure-treated wood?

It comes down to whether you want to maintain it. Composite costs more up front and then asks almost nothing of you afterwards, and paired with a matching composite railing the whole deck ages at one rate. Pressure-treated pine with a good coating gets you a deck that looks excellent and needs attention every few years.

Neither is the right answer for everyone, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. We will tell you which we would put on your house and why, and then it is your call.

Do you pull the permit?

Where a deck needs one, yes, and we follow it up. That is on us rather than on you. Height above grade, stair and railing geometry and how the deck attaches to the house are the usual reasons a permit and an inspection come into it.

Water is getting into the house near the deck. Is that the deck?

Very often, yes, and it is the single most common deck problem people do not recognize as one. The deck attaches to the house at a ledger board, and if that ledger was never flashed, water runs down the house wall and in behind it instead of past it. The damage then shows up inside, on a wall or a ceiling, a long way from anything that looks like a deck.

We have had two separate calls about exactly this. It is repairable, and the fix is to take the connection apart, flash it properly and put it back, which is also why every deck we build gets a flashed ledger from the start.

What happens if you find something worse once you open it up?

It gets written up and sent to you before anyone touches it, and nothing extra proceeds until you have seen it on paper. That has happened on our own deck jobs in both directions.

On one Beavercreek deck replacement the footing plan changed partway through and the revised work cost less than the original, so the difference came back to the homeowner as a credit, approved in writing the same morning before any concrete went in. On a log home restoration we found hidden rot that was not visible at the walkthrough, stopped, and put repair versus replace to the owner in writing before carrying on.

Do you do railings and stairs on their own?

Yes, and they are worth doing on their own, because rails and treads are what people touch and what fails first while the deck around them is still sound.

On a custom log home we replaced weathered top rails, post tops and stair treads that had become a safety problem, routed the new handrail to match the existing profile so the repair did not read as a patch, and braced a main deck that had begun separating from the house before restaining the lot.

Can you put power out on the deck?

Yes, and properly rather than by tapping whatever happens to be in the wall behind it. On a recent deck we ran a dedicated twenty amp circuit from the panel on new cable with its own breaker, through a sealed conduit stub to the outside.

A dedicated circuit means the full capacity of the breaker is there when you want it, a fault trips one circuit instead of half the house, and the wiring is new and sized for the job. We are a general contractor, so that is our own work rather than another trade you have to chase. You can see the commercial side of what we do on our commercial build-outs page.

Next step

Get on the list for spring

Tell us roughly what you want and where you want it. We will come out and walk the yard whatever the month, price it in writing, and get the permit moving so the build starts as soon as the ground lets us.

Get a Free Estimate Call (937) 888-WORK
Free walkthrough and written scope