Deck repair cost in Georgia, starting with the boards

What replacing deck boards typically runs in Northwest Georgia

Boards on a frame that's still sound usually run $14 to $18+ per square foot. It's figured by the square foot, so a number for your deck starts with how much decking comes up.

The range is for swapping boards over a sound frame, and it stops there. Railings, stairs, posts, framing and staining are separate jobs, and a new deck is a different job altogether, with footings, framing and usually a permit. A board price doesn't stretch to cover any of them.

It isn't a quote, but it's good for checking one. A number well under it deserves a question about what's been left out. A number well over it deserves a look at what's under your deck, because a repair that grows past the boards stops being a board price.

How many square feet is a handful of boards?

Boards get bought by the length and priced by the area, so the conversion is the useful part. A standard deck board is five and a half inches wide, which makes a twelve foot board about five and a half square feet. An eight footer is a bit over three and a half, and a sixteen footer is a little over seven.

Count the boards that have to come up, write down each length and add it all up. A hundred square feet of deck is about eighteen twelve foot boards, which is a handy check when you're standing on a deck wondering how big the job is.

A soft section can be cut out so both new ends land on the center of a joist, but a board that's soft in more than one place usually comes out whole.

Is the frame sound enough to just swap boards?

That decides everything else, and the boards can't tell you. The screwdriver test, pushed into the joists and posts from underneath, settles it. If the frame passes, you're pricing boards. If it doesn't, new boards over it are money spent twice.

What a frame problem looks like from above, and which findings should keep people off the deck, is laid out in the deck safety checks. Read it before you spend anything on the surface. If the plan is a roof and screens over it, what a screened porch costs explains why that's a different job from boards.

What pushes a deck repair past the boards

Two things touch most repairs past the boards: access and permits. A low deck you can't crawl under makes framing work harder than one with room to move, and a repair that changes how the deck carries its load can need a permit. The building department covering your address decides, and what a permit does and doesn't cover is worth reading first.

Five repairs sit past the boards, and a board price says nothing about any of them. Here's what drives each:

• Posts. Rot concentrates at the ground line. Replacing one means holding the beam up while the old post comes out, and sometimes a new footing, so the post height and the room to work both count.
• The ledger. The work sits behind the siding, where the deck ties into the house, so how the siding is put on and whether the wall behind it is sound both move the cost.
• Joists and hangers. A cracked joist can often be sistered, with a new one fastened full length beside it. Rot is different: soft wood has to come out, so a joist that's soft along its length gets replaced.
• Stair stringers. A split stringer gets replaced, and the new one has to be cut so every tread lands level, which makes stairs slower than their size suggests.
• Railings. The posts decide it. A loose post often needs blocking behind it instead of a new rail, and how much railing there is, and what it's made of, sets the rest.

Boards, finish and how the repair looks afterward

Material is one of the biggest swings in a board job. Pressure-treated pine, cedar and composite start at different places and age differently, so ask any quote which one it assumes and whether it's in the number.

New boards also won't match the old ones. Fresh pressure-treated lumber is wet and greenish, it needs months to dry before it takes a stain, and the boards around it have weathered to gray. A deck with a few new boards in it looks patched until everything weathers or gets refinished together. Cleaning and staining is its own job, driven by how much cleaning, stripping and sanding the surface needs, and it's priced on its own.

Swapping a few boards yourself

A few loose, split or soft boards make one of the better DIY jobs on a house, as long as the frame passes the screwdriver test first. You need a drill, a circular saw, a pry bar and a box of exterior-rated screws. Interior screws rust out in treated lumber, so don't substitute them.

Pull the old board, look at the joist it was sitting on, and push a screwdriver into it before anything gets screwed down. Cut the new board so each end lands on a joist, leave a gap about a sixteen-penny nail wide between dry boards, butt wet treated boards nearly tight since they shrink as they dry, and space composite the way its install sheet says. On treated lumber, brush a little preservative on every cut end. End grain drinks, and a bare cut end is where the next board starts to rot.

Our minimum job charge is $180, so a board or two is best saved for a visit with more on the list, and batching small jobs into one trip is where the savings are. Anything that carries load, a post, the ledger, a joist or a stringer, belongs with somebody who does it for a living.

Ten minutes with a tape and a screwdriver

Before anyone gives you a number, count the boards that need to come up, note each length and turn that into square feet. Then probe the frame from underneath. If it's sound, that square footage is what a board quote should be built on, so ask what area a quote assumes.

If the screwdriver finds soft wood in a post, a joist or the ledger, set the board count aside. You're no longer pricing boards, and anyone who gives you a per-square-foot figure for that deck is guessing.

Send the board count, the lengths and two photos, one from on top and one from underneath, through deck building and repair. There's no charge for the quote.

Questions that come with this one