Argh: new deck is sagging.

[BruceB]

Wow! That is some quality workmanship (NOT) ! I'm sorry to hear you have to deal with this.

Two big questions -

Did he use treated wood? Doesn't look like it in the pics.

And who puts load-bearing posts directly into the ground?


Living in the the very wet Pacific Northwest, we're all about keeping things from warping and rotting.

[Mosca]

Some photos

[Marauderer]

Sorry to hear about your beck woes Mosca. Getting a good contractor in this day and age isn't easy at best. I hope all ends well for you.

[Jon Solberg]

Great way to handle it Mos. Keep us posted.

[Huskee]

Wow, sorry to hear of your troubles. Did he by chance have a new hiree or his 'nephew' or some such do the work...or was this sadly done as his incompetency or intent? I could possibly sympathize with one mistake being made....but soooo many on one relatively simple project (deck vs whole house) is interesting. It really sounds like the story of someone completely unskilled in construction and building codes being given power tools and lumber and told to "make something happen with all of this", more so than a contractor simply skipping things.

I sure hope you get a fair resolution.

[Mosca]

My thoughts are on what it would take to make us whole again. The original quote included removing an old deck. So a refund would include the cost to remove this one. On the other had, the old deck that was removed was solid, and this one is not. So the concept of being made whole could be interpreted to mean, back with a useable deck.

Also worth considering is that we could get our money back from the bonding/insurance company, but to win more than that we would definitely have to go to court.

[Powersmoke_80]

That sucks, I hope you get this resolved by having it replaced.Just getting your money back and still having to pay to have it removed would just add to your grief.

[Mosca]

New as in 2 years old.

The contractor had done some work for us before, and it was satisfactory. And he came with a decent recommendation, he did some remodeling for the owner of the business where I work. So since he'd mentioned to me before that he does decks, I called him to do ours. And when it was done, it looked great. But now, two years later... problems. So I called the Code Inspector for our county to come take a look.

1) It was built without a permit.
2) The siding was not removed.
3) The deck is not lagged to the house... it is screwed into the siding.
4) The span is too long for 2x8s, they are crowned now.
5) The ring boards are not notched into the 4x4s.
6) The deck is too big for 4x4s, they should have used 6x6s.
7) The 4x4s are directly in the ground, and possibly don't go down the required 42" because they are pushed from the frost.
8) There is no spacing on the deck boards, causing water to pond.
9) Some joist brackets are for 8" joists, some are for 4" joists, some are for 2" joists. Some are nailed, and some are not.
10) All the nails in the deck are steel; none are galvanized.
11) The center beam of 3 boards is not lag bolted together, and the outer two boards are warping.
12) "Not quality craftsmanship", a catchall for minor code violations that separately wouldn't rise to a failure to be approved, but taken as a whole would cause the Inspector to say "Hey, this is just too much."

I'm not pissed really, because that's not my nature. My nature is to address problems rationally. Here in PA, contractors are required to be licensed, bonded, and insured; I looked up his license number and I have his insurance information. I've already spoken with him, and he's come out to the house and apologized and promised to make it right. I asked him if he had a building permit when he built it, and he answered, "I don't know, I'll have to check my records," which is, "No." Because you either always get one, or you didn't get one.

His options come down to this: 1) give me my money back and file a liability claim with his insurance company, or 2) go to court and get ordered to give me my money back, probably lose his insurance and his license, and also have a complaint filed with the Attorney General's office and face charges of contractor fraud. Because there are only two reasons this deck got built the way it did. He is either incompetent, or he knew exactly what he was doing.

The Code Inspector said the deck is safe to use for the rest of this year, but probably will fail in about two years due to the steel nails rusting.