Question

Hi everyone!  I haven’t ever posted in here but I’m looking for advice.Hi everyone! I haven’t ever posted in here but I’m looking for advice. Our back deck is literally falling apart and not safe for our kids. (Bottom step has fallen off and I fell through a board on the surface last weekend, there are a few more smaller holes. ) The deck wasn’t in great shape when we bought the house three years ago so we knew we would need to replace at some point. The quotes to replace it are about $5, 000 and we need to save for a few months before we could afford that. I was considering asking my husband to replace it. He’s very handy and his stepdad builds beautiful decks and offered to help. Has anyone ever built one? Can you offer advice on if it would really save us a lot? I feel like it would save us at least half and we could pay cash for that now. Thoughts?  

Answer 1

My Husband did one and he save a bunch.  

Answer 2

Depends on the type of wood you want to use and how big of a deck. We did ours this past summer 16x20 with pressure treated wood. I think the final total was $1600, and we did all the work ourselves.  

Comments

The deck is also close enough to the ground that we didnt need to put up hand rails

Answer 3

Make sure you check your local regulations. When my parents rebuilt their deck they had to get permits for it. But, it was a solid deck and well built and cheaper than any quote.  

Answer 4

When you take the old deck off check to make sure there’s no rot around the house. This happened to a friend, which is how her $1K deck became a $5K one. Apparently water got between house and deck.  

Comments

@resentment we are pretty sure that a licensed contractor didn’t put in her deck. There were a lot of shortcuts that she ended up paying to fix.  

Answer 5

It would completely save you money to do it yourself

Answer 6

I would say consult your father in law as he is the builder he can give a quote

Answer 7

We replaced ours on our own. we sent measurements to a company who quoted us on the supplies we would need and had them delivered. it costed us about $3600 but that also included finishing our front porch. red is before and grey is after

Comments

@resentment we were able to reuse the 16 footers under so that saved a little. good luck!  

Answer 8

Do it - you can easily save half!  

Answer 9

It would save you a ton and If the frame is not rotten you would need only replace deck boards and steps. Be sure to coat them well with something to protect them in order to protect your investment

Answer 10

My dad and I built our deck. As long as you know what you're doing it can save a lot of money

Answer 11

We own a construction company things can get expensive but I would say if you have someone capable of build just a wood deck then go ahead however you still need to get a building permit depending on where you live and you have to build it to code and pass inspection. $5000 isn’t bad for someone to build it.