Around Hazel Dell a good many decks went on the back of mid-century homes years ago, and plenty of them, now two to four decades old, are quietly failing where nobody looks, at the ledger and down on the footings. They sit in the shade of a tall, settled tree canopy that sheds needles into every gap and holds moss and damp against the boards month after wet month, through most of the year. What finishes a deck here is not weather that pounds it. It is a wet that never fully dries. We put up new decks and patio covers, and tear out and rebuild the ones that have let go, with all of that in view, and because wood rot repair is what we do best, we can usually tell you how the old one failed.
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Up from the footings: posts and beams, joists, deck boards, the steps and a handrail, flashed to shed shade and wet, in cedar or capped composite.
When the frame still has good years in it, fresh boards go down over the top. When the damp has eaten through it, we pull the whole deck and start again at the footings.
A solid roof above the patio, flashed to the house, so it keeps earning its place even once the rain settles in for the season.
What holds the weight: the footings, the posts and beams, and the ledger bolted to the house.
We unbolt the old rail, check each post for rot and wobble, and add new hardware wherever a connection has worked loose. A deck surface over 30 inches above the grade below needs a guard, and any replacement must meet the height and spacing rules in current code. None of this calls for rebuilding the deck.
The frame is the part you never see again once the boards go down. This is the same deck at both stages.
Drag the handle. Left, the deck framed: joists on the beam, nothing to walk on yet. Right, the same deck finished, with the timber cover over it and the steps down to the yard.
Before After On a deck we are called out to inspect, the problem is nearly always hiding at the ledger, that one board fastened to the house wall that passes the deck’s entire weight back into the home’s framing. You never see it, tucked up behind the deck boards, and when its flashing was run the wrong way, water works in behind the board and has nowhere to go. Beneath the settled tree canopy common here, a shaded wall holds that damp for weeks on end, so it soaks down into the band joist and the base of the wall, rotting lumber that looks perfectly fine from the yard. By slow degrees the deck drifts away from the house while the wood hidden behind the old siding turns soft and black. On any rebuild we strip that board first, and on a fresh deck we take our time flashing and through-bolting it, because it is the piece that lets a deck down quietly, well before a thing shows at the surface.
This is the part where you actually make the choices. Four of them, and only one has to do with the boards you stand on.
Begin with what you walk on, since that is the only layer you ever actually touch. Treated fir is the low-cost pick and the one that will not sit still; it cups and checks as it dries, so it wants most of a season before a finish will take, and from then on it lives on a round of washing and resealing. Cedar holds its shape better and is kinder underfoot, costs more, and because the boards milled today carry so much soft sapwood, the upkeep lands close to fir within a few years. Capped composite is the big number the day it goes down and almost nothing after that, no sealing, no graying, no slivers, though a stretch of it in full sun will warm right up. In a climate this damp the real question was never the cost of one board. It is whether you will really keep after a wood deck with a hose and a can of sealer every year or two, and by now most folks know the honest answer to that.
Whatever goes on top, the frame beneath is wood, and the frame is where a deck is truly made or lost. We build in treated stock, drop every joist into a steel hanger rather than nailing it on the end, and call for hot-dipped galvanized or stainless on every hanger and screw. Treated lumber is loaded with copper, and copper chews straight through plain zinc, so a bargain hanger wastes to nothing while it is meant to be carrying the deck. One cheap detail earns its keep too: a run of tape capping each joist, a few dollars a roll, sealing off the single edge of the frame that barely dries all winter under this shade.
Below everything sit the footings, out of sight under the dirt and quietly deciding how long the rest holds up. Whatever a deck rests on sets the ceiling on how good it can ever be. We dig down to whatever depth Clark County specifies, pour genuine concrete, and stand each post on a standoff that keeps its end up off the pad rather than sitting in standing water. That counts for the most on the lower lots, down toward the creek bottoms where the ground stays soft and wet, because a post rammed straight into bare soil is the single most common reason a deck that still looks sound ends up torn out years too soon.
Railing mostly comes down to the view, though in these older neighborhoods the view is often the back garden and the big trees rather than anything far off. Wood is the cheapest and wants the same steady fuss as a wood floor. Powder-coated aluminum in black is where most owners settle: slim uprights, no upkeep, and it nearly disappears against a hedge or a trunk. Cable and glass open a yard up completely and cost the most, and each brings its own rules on how close the posts must sit and what fills the gaps, rules a frame laid out for a plain wood rail often will not meet. None of it bends the code, though. How tall the rail stands and how wide the balusters may gap are written down, not left to taste.
Two things are far cheaper to settle now than to add on later. Stairs take a bigger bite of the budget than their size suggests, because every tread is its own little piece of framing, and a broad, gentle run runs higher than a tight, steep one while being the whole difference between a deck the family lives on and one they only glance at. The other is anything electrical, a low-voltage line tucked under the rail, an outdoor outlet, a fan if a cover is going up. It is cheap to rough-in while the framing is still open and a real nuisance once the boards are screwed down.
This is a deck we actually built, photographed because it shows the two subjects of this page sharing one spot: a deck up off the ground, and a sheltered corner of it that holds its use when the sky opens up.
Follow the outer edge and you will spot a paler plank wrapping the perimeter, continuing around each of the two generous steps that drop to the bare soil. Builders name that a picture frame, and it is dearer than simply running the planks off square, because each one out in the field has to be measured to meet it cleanly while the joists along the rim get doubled up to take it. It does honest work besides, keeping the whole thing from looking like a plain stack of lumber. Those steps, broad and shallow rather than narrow and sharp, are what settle a deck into the garden instead of leaving it perched above it like a stage.
That gazebo, four wooden posts hung with dark mesh, sets its full load straight onto the deck instead of onto piers of its own. That means the joists beneath were sized for that extra mass well before the first board was screwed home. Here, in plain sight, is why we insist a cover is a structural decision and never a trimming: what supports it gets worked out underneath, in the framing, long ahead of anyone picturing a roof.
Neither one is a wrong answer; they just suit different people. Cedar and treated wood cost less to begin with and take a fresh finish for decades, but in a place this wet they only stay good if you hold to the cleaning and resealing. Composite is the bigger check on day one and then leaves you be, shrugging off the moss and gray that our long, shaded winters drive into bare wood. Either way, the surface counts for less than the part neither choice changes: under it the frame is wood no matter what, and what truly sets the deck’s lifespan is how soundly that frame went together, not the boards you walk across.
The wettest stretch of our year lands right on the season you would most want to be outdoors, and it runs from fall well into spring. Put a real roof above the patio and that changes. Tied into the house wall with proper flashing and stood on posts bearing on footings dug to depth, the space stays usable deep into the gray months, needles and all. A cover like that joins into the home’s structure, which makes it framing rather than a loose shade you prop up, and that means a permit nearly every time. Because Hazel Dell sits in unincorporated county, there is no city building desk for it; the review and inspections run through the Clark County permit center instead. The same crew draws the plan, carries it through the county, and does the build.
Most of the price rides on three things: the footprint, how high it sits above the ground, and which surface you choose. The low end is a fresh top laid over an existing frame that still has life, sitting close to grade. It climbs with new footings, tall posts, a long stair run, or a frame so far gone it has to come out whole. Going composite raises the material line and erases the yearly maintenance. And if you are already holding a written number from another builder, put it in front of us, because we will match or beat most written quotes by ten percent and say so on paper.
Those surface boards, the first thing nearly everyone wants priced, are not where the dollars actually pile up. Most of the labor goes into the structure: setting out and hanging the joists, standing and plumbing the beams and posts, and framing the stairs, which swallow more hours per square foot than any other stretch of a deck. Digging for the footings and placing them follows, and the deeper and taller the deck, the faster that grows, since a tall post wants a wider footing and solid bracing under it. The boards and the hardware come after, and then the rail, routinely underbid because it prices out per running foot and a deck carries plenty of running feet. Last is the finish: a skirt around the base, a bit of lighting, a gate, the trim that hides the frame from view.
So two decks that pencil out to the same area can land far apart on cost, one riding several feet up a sloped lot behind a long stair run, the other flat against the ground. If the budget will not stretch, the cheapest honest move is nearly always to lower it or simplify its outline, not to swap the material beneath your feet.
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Just about all of this happens out in the yard, which makes a deck one of the gentler projects to have underway while you are still living in the house. The sequence usually goes like this.
First we settle how big it will be and how high, where the stairs come down and how the rail runs, then the drawings go in to Clark County for a permit. Any deck bolted to the house, and every roofed cover, has to clear this step, and it is the lone stretch of the schedule that waits on an office that is not ours.
Up go the string lines, the holes get bored to the depth Clark County requires, then the concrete goes in and the post bases get set on top. A run of rain can slide this day down the calendar, since fresh concrete will not cure until the conditions are right.
First the ledger is through-bolted and flashed hard against the wall, then the posts and beams are stood up and braced true, and the joists seat down into their hangers, each one capped with a line of tape. Every bit of that has to be looked over by the inspector while it is still bare and within reach, and building in this precise order is exactly what makes that possible.
Now the boards go on, one at a time, a trim band closes off the perimeter, and the stairs are shaped and set to finish it. This is the week the whole thing stops looking like a construction site and plainly becomes a deck.
The railing is the last thing up, its posts, the cap rail and the infill between, then the odds and ends: skirting, a little low lighting, a gate where one makes sense. Light work, every bit of it, and still the part that decides whether a deck looks properly finished or only almost there.
On their way out the crew carries off everything, the cut ends, the soil dug out for the footings, the dumpster and the rest. Then the two of us go over the whole deck against your estimate, and if you chose a wood surface, I will tell you honestly how long to hold off before the first sealer goes down.
Sometimes it is well worth it, and keeping the frame holds onto a fair slice of your budget. What settles the question is a close look underneath, so before any figure gets quoted I go through it member by member, the posts on their footings, the beams they carry, the joists across the top, and the board bolted to the house, feeling for soft wood and watching for any sag or lean. Then you get one of three straight answers: the structure stays, a few members come out and get replaced, or it has had its day and rebuilding is the wiser spend. Whatever we do follows what is truly down there, not a hopeful guess.
Almost always. As soon as a deck is fixed to the house, or stands more than a single low step up, a permit is required, and a roofed cover needs one just about every time, since the structure is now carrying serious weight. The particular thing about Hazel Dell is that it lies outside any city limits, so there is no municipal building desk in the picture; the whole review goes to the Clark County permit office. As a licensed Washington contractor, WA Lic. #EVERGRS757MC, I pull that permit, hand in the plans, and set the framing and final inspections myself. About the only thing that gets a pass is a low platform set right on the dirt and fastened to nothing at all.
Figure on anything from a few days to about two weeks of work on site, driven by how big it is, how many footings go in, and what the weather is up to. The schedule comes written into your estimate from the start, so you are not left guessing. A cover carries a quiet bonus besides: the minute its roof is up, work can continue beneath it even on the wet days that would stall an exposed concrete pour.
A deck that gives when you cross it is telling you the framing is either too light for the span or has started to rot through, and either way it deserves a set of eyes on site, the more so if it stands well up off the ground. If you can get beneath it safely, snap a few clear shots of the joists and the steel hangers and send them across, and I will tell you what I am seeing before anyone drives out your way.
The honest answer leans on the frame far more than on the surface up top. A treated frame with its ledger flashed, its joists taped, corrosion-proof hangers throughout, and every post standing clear of the concrete will outlive two or three surfaces screwed over it across the years. A wood top that you actually wash and reseal on time goes a long way; ignore it under this shade and damp and it slides from green to gray to spongy. Composite beats either option and still rides on that very same frame, which is the whole reason every one of these talks ends up back in the framing.
Often it can. If there is enough height left to work with and the slab still carries rainwater away from the house, we frame a low deck on sleepers laid right over the concrete, which skips the digging and the poured footings altogether. Where that plan changes is a slab that is badly cracked or has settled so it drains back toward the foundation. We put that right first, because sealing moisture against the house under fresh boards is the sort of slow, costly trouble nobody notices until it is already serious.
Yes, and building both at once is where the savings sit. The roof over a deck leans on one of two things, either the deck frame itself or a separate set of posts and footings put in for it alone, and no matter which, its weight belongs in the drawings before any boards go down. Add the cover after the fact and we are usually prying up finished decking just to get back at the structure, which means buying that same labor a second time.
Moss comes with the territory on any flat surface here, and the big trees make it a steadier problem than most, dropping a constant litter of needles that settle into the seams and trap wet against the wood. You stay ahead of most of it three ways: leave a true gap between the boards so they drain, cap the joists underneath with tape, and give the whole deck a good scrub when the wet season finally breaks. That said, if a deck sits in deep shade all year and the sun never really reaches it, the answer is not a heavier sealing routine. It is choosing composite before the first board ever goes on.
The shop is over on SE 184th Avenue in east Vancouver, a quick hop to Hazel Dell on the Washington side without a river to cross, so this work stays close to home. We build through the older neighborhoods along the Highway 99 and Hazel Dell Avenue corridor, across Hazel Dell North and Hazel Dell South, around the 78th Street shopping area, and down the low lots toward Burnt Bridge Creek and Cougar Creek, along with nearby Minnehaha and Walnut Grove and the rest of this corner of Clark County.
Three of the 50 reviews on our Google profile, in the homeowners' own words.
Wow. Just Wow. Had the Evergreen crew replace existing fencing, put in a 33.5ft x 18.5ft multi-tiered deck, and assemble a 12ft x 16ft gazebo. Couldn't be happier with the results.
Anthony L.Deck, fence and gazebo
We talked to 4 different contractors and only David, of Evergreen, took the time to climb up to our roof to check out the job. The others gave us bids based upon a photo. Evergreen was not the cheapest but the extent of the work they did was worth every penny.
Steve K.Roof and exterior work
We had a small but very unique project and this team handled it with a great attitude. They were responsive, on time, and the finished work looks like it was always meant to be there.
Paige T.Small custom project
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