Cincinnati Custom Decks | Deck Builders

How we build a deck

Six stages, in this order, on every job we take. Nothing on this list is optional and nothing on it turns up as a surprise line item in week three.

1. Measure and design

We come out, measure the house, check door threshold heights and the fall across the yard, and locate the gas meter, the hose bib and the dryer vent before anything gets drawn. Then we talk through how you actually want to use the space, and come back with two or three layouts at different prices. See deck design for what that covers.

2. Written scope

Materials by brand and product line, framing specification, hardware, railing style, stair count, timeline and price, all on paper before anybody swings a hammer. Anything that changes later gets written down and agreed before we act on it, because verbal change orders are how good jobs end in arguments.

3. Permit

We prepare the framing plan and submit it to whichever jurisdiction your property sits in. Cincinnati, Mason, Blue Ash and Loveland each run their own building department, West Chester goes through the township, and in Anderson Township the township handles zoning while Hamilton County issues the permit. We tell you at the measure which one you are dealing with and what it means for the start date.

4. Footings and posts

Holes dug below the frost line and inspected before anything is poured, then filled with concrete and fitted with a galvanised standoff base so the end grain of a post never sits in standing water. On the heavy clay that runs through this part of the Ohio River valley, footings often need to be wider than the minimum simply to spread the load across ground that carries less of it and holds water longer.

5. Ledger, frame and deck

The ledger goes on through bolted or structurally screwed at whatever spacing the span requires, then gets flashed with a metal cap and a self adhering membrane behind it. Every joist and beam takes butyl tape along the top edge, which is the cheapest thing on the whole job and the reason the frame outlives its own boards.

Joists get spaced for the product going on top, which for composite is tighter than almost anyone expects. Boards go down on hidden fasteners, guards get built to current code and bolted to the frame, and every step in a stair run gets the same rise as the one below it.

6. Inspection and handover

We meet the inspector, get the card signed and hand over the paperwork with the product warranties attached. The permit record stays with the house and answers the question a buyer's agent will eventually ask.

How to read a deck quote

Quotes for the same back yard routinely land thousands of dollars apart, and it is almost never because one builder found efficiencies the others missed. It is because they are pricing different decks. Three line items account for most of the spread, and not one of them is visible once the boards are down.

Ask for the footing depth

A quote assuming concrete deck blocks sitting on the surface will always undercut one that pours below the frost line. It is also the deck that goes out of level within five winters, opens its board gaps and loosens its guards. Get the depth written on the page.

Ask for the joist spacing

Sixteen inches on centre is standard for a perpendicular composite layout and twelve for a diagonal run. Framing at twenty four is cheaper, gives you a deck that flexes underfoot, and voids the board warranty you paid the premium for in the first place.

Ask how the guard posts attach

A guard post bolted to the rim joist or to blocking inside the frame takes the load the code expects it to take. A guard post screwed down through the decking is holding on with a handful of fasteners in a single board, and you can feel the difference just by leaning on the rail. Blocking goes in during framing, so this gets decided long before anybody sees a finished deck.

Then compare

With those three written on every quote you are finally comparing the same deck rather than the same square footage, and most of the gap explains itself without anyone having to argue. A builder who will not put them in writing has answered a different and more useful question.

Building for this valley

Five things about Cincinnati change how a deck has to be built here, and between them they explain why a plan copied from a flat part of the country fails early on these hillsides.

Slope, not flat ground

Most of the city is built on hillsides that fall toward the Ohio River, so a level back yard is the exception rather than the rule. That usually means longer posts, a taller frame and a walkout underneath instead of a low single level deck, and it puts real money into structure rather than into square footage. On steep ground we look at whether an under deck system can claim back the space below before anyone talks about board colour.

Freeze and thaw

The river valley swings above and below freezing more often than ground further north. Each swing lifts saturated clay a little and drops it back, so a footing that stops short of the frost line gets pushed up and never settles level again. That is the whole reason surface blocks and shallow piers fail around here.

Water in every month

Cincinnati is a humid river city and takes meaningful rain in every month of the year. Ravine and creek side lots stay wet long after the rain stops. Wood that stays wet rots, and composite sitting in trapped water grows surface mould underneath, so board gaps, ventilation below and grading that moves water away from the footings all matter more here than they would in a dry climate.

Humid summer heat

South and west facing decks take a real load through July and August, and the humidity keeps them hot into the evening. Wood greys out if nobody seals it. Dark composite gets hot enough underfoot to be genuinely unpleasant by mid afternoon, and on the open ridgeline lots out east there is little to take the edge off it. We tell you which way your deck faces before you choose a colour rather than after the boards are down.

Clay soil

Much of the metro sits on heavy clay from the Cincinnati and Clermont soil series, which holds water and carries less load per square foot than granular soil does. Footings often need to be wider than the code minimum, and on a slope the downhill post carries more of the deck than the uphill one, so the pad sizes are not interchangeable. It costs a little more concrete, it does not show up in the finished deck, and it is not optional.