Weeds Through the Boards
A deck replacement rarely starts with drama. More often it starts like this one did: a low deck behind a brick house in Beavercreek, weathered gray as driftwood, with weeds standing up through the gaps between the boards, a hole rotted clean through near the door, and boards lifting loose where the deck met the brick patio.
A deck in that condition has stopped being a deck. It has become something you step around on the way to the yard, and every season leaves it a little worse.
The homeowner called us, and it was a short conversation. Nothing here was worth saving, and we both knew it. The plan: take all of it out and rebuild from the ground up, starting with what holds a deck to the ground.
Signs a Deck Needs to Be Replaced
Plenty of decks need repairs. Fewer need to go entirely. These are the signs that separate the two:
Rot you can push a finger through. A soft board is one problem. A hole in the walking surface means water has been living in the wood, not just landing on it.
Boards that cup, lift, or pull their fasteners. Wood that keeps cycling between wet and dry moves until the connections let go.
Weeds growing up through the deck. Plants need constant moisture. If they can live in the gaps of your deck, so can rot.
A surface that cleaning no longer changes. When washing and resealing stop making any difference, the boards are past treatment.
One of these in one spot is a repair call. All of them across the whole deck is a deck replacement, because by that point the problem is almost never just the boards.
Out With the Old, In With a Real Frame
Demolition came first. All 392 square feet came out, decking and framing both, and left in a single dumpster. A deck replacement should not inherit anything from the deck it replaces.
Then the new frame went together, and the frame is where a deck earns its lifespan. A 2×8 ledger board, lagged to the house with half-inch bolts and flashed so water cannot get in behind it. Six 6×6 pressure-treated ground-contact posts, each set on a galvanized standoff base that holds the cut end of the post up out of the wet. A post standing in soil or in a puddle is a post with a countdown running. Across the posts, 2×10 beams. Over the beams, 2×8 joists on 16-inch centers, every one carried in a galvanized hanger instead of resting on nails alone.
Different pieces, same job: keep the wood dry and the connections tight.
Change Order #1: New Footings, and Money Back
The contract called for the standard deep-footing approach: six holes dug three feet down to get below the frost line, cardboard tube forms, a gravel base for drainage, concrete, and anchor bolts set in the top to receive the post bases.
Partway through the job, the footing plan changed. The deck went on six shallow formed pads instead. For each footing, the crew excavated a shallow pocket, placed and compacted a base of slag sand, built a form from 2×8 pressure-treated lumber, and filled it with concrete, the anchor bolt set while the pour was wet. Once it cured, the forms came off and the pads were backfilled. The posts landed on the same standoff bases either way.
Two details stand out. The new plan put twice as much concrete under each post, poured as a wide pad over a compacted base rather than a narrow column in a deep hole. And the change order ran in the direction homeowners never expect: the revised footing work cost less than the original plan, and the difference came back to the homeowner as a credit.
The paperwork kept pace with the work. The change was written up, sent, and approved in writing the same morning, before any concrete went in.
Change Order #2: Upgrading the Power Plan
The second change order rewrote the electrical scope. The original plan was minimal: mount a weatherproof outlet box on the brick and feed it from wiring assumed to already be in the back wall.
The approved change replaced that with a dedicated circuit. A new 20-amp line now runs from the electrical panel on fresh 12/2 cable, protected by its own breaker, to an access point inside at the back wall, with a sealed half-inch conduit stub passing through to the exterior. Power is roughed to the back of the house on a line that serves nothing else.
For outdoor power, a dedicated circuit is the right way to do it. The full capacity of the breaker is available where you need it, a fault trips one circuit instead of half the house, and the wiring is new and sized for the job rather than inherited. The homeowner approved the change in writing the same evening it was sent.
Decking and a Coating That Seals It
With the frame set, fifty 5/4×6 pressure-treated pine deck boards went down over the full 392 square feet, fastened with 3-inch deck screws. Screws, because a screwed-down board stays a screwed-down board through years of wet and dry.
Then the whole surface got two coats of Sherwin-Williams Deck & Dock. It is an elastomeric coating, and elastomeric is the word that matters: it cures into a thick, flexible film that bridges small cracks and seals the wood against water. It is the opposite of the bare gray boards this deck started with.
How We Handle Change Orders
Two change orders on one deck might sound like a project drifting. It was the opposite. Both were put in writing and sent while the job was open. Both were approved in writing within hours, one in minutes, one the same evening. One lowered the cost, one raised it, and both were settled before the final invoice went out, two weeks after the contract was approved.
That is what a change order should be: a decision the homeowner makes in writing while there is still time to make it, not a surprise on the last bill. It is how we run our residential remodeling and exterior work, on decks and on bigger transformations like From Patio Door to Window Wall.
The Result
The homeowner ended up with 392 square feet of new deck: six formed concrete footings, six posts standing clear of the ground, a frame hung in galvanized hardware, boards screwed down and sealed under two coats of elastomeric coating, and a dedicated circuit roughed to the back wall. The weeds are gone because the deck they grew through is gone.
Have a Deck That Has Seen Better Days?
If your deck is showing the signs above, weeds in the gaps, soft boards, a surface past saving, we will give you a straight answer on whether it needs new boards or a full deck replacement. Call us at (937) 888-WORK or schedule an estimate.
Let’s Build Something Limitless.