Deck Builders in Seattle

Composite, for most people here, and the reason is maintenance rather than durability. Cedar is a genuinely good decking timber and it looks and feels better than any composite on the day it is finished — but in a climate with nine wet months it needs cleaning and re-sealing on a cycle to stay that way, and the honest question is whether you will do that in year four. Composite costs more up front, does not need sealing, and shrugs off the algae film that a shaded Seattle deck grows every winter. Where we would still argue for cedar is a small deck someone genuinely enjoys maintaining, or where it has to match existing timber.

Posts and the ledger, in that order, and almost never the boards. Posts fail at the point where they meet the ground, because that zone stays damp and has oxygen, which is exactly the condition rot wants — so post material and how the post is set decide the lifespan far more than the decking above. The ledger, where the frame attaches to the house, fails when water gets behind it and has nowhere to go; that one is a flashing detail and it is invisible once the deck is on. When people call us about a springy deck with a sound surface, it is one of those two nearly every time.

It depends on height, size and where the deck sits, and it is a question worth resolving before design rather than after. Low ground-level decks are frequently exempt; raised decks, anything attached to the house, and anything inside an Environmentally Critical Area are a different conversation entirely — an ECA designation changes what is exempt regardless of the deck itself. Requirements also differ between Seattle and each Eastside jurisdiction, so a rule someone quotes you from Bellevue may not apply in Shoreline. We confirm the requirement for your specific address and include the answer in the written estimate.

Yes, but only if that is decided before it is framed. An elevated deck over a daylight basement or a sloped lot can either shed water through the boards onto whatever is below — which makes the space a permanently wet no-go area — or carry an under-deck drainage system that catches it and takes it away, leaving a dry usable room underneath. Retrofitting that afterwards is possible and considerably more expensive than building it in. On a Seattle lot where usable outdoor space is limited, it is usually the best value decision available on the whole project.

Sometimes, and it is worth investigating before committing to a full rebuild. If the substructure is sound, re-decking is a genuine saving and gives you a surface with many years in it. What has to be checked first is joist spacing, because composite generally needs closer spacing than older cedar framing was built to, and a frame built for one may not accept the other without additional joists. The other check is the condition of the posts and the ledger. We will open up and inspect rather than guess, and tell you honestly when a frame is not worth building on.