Beaverton sits flat on the valley floor of the Tualatin Plains, so when thirty-six to forty inches of rain fall across a year, the water does not run off a slope the way it would somewhere hillier. It pools near foundations and crawlspaces and takes its time leaving. We frame decks and patio covers with that slow drainage in mind, and since tracking down hidden rot is our specialty, we usually know exactly where a tired old deck let go.
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Footings, framing, decking, railings and a stair run, built in cedar or composite and sized for ground that drains slowly.
When the framing underneath is still solid, we lay new boards over it. When years of standing moisture near the footings have worked all the way through, the whole structure comes out and gets rebuilt from scratch.
A real roof over the patio means that space stays usable through our wettest months instead of sitting empty until summer.
What ties it to the house, plus the beams, posts and footings supporting it all.
Flat lots keep many decks low, and code only requires a guard where the surface stands higher than 30 inches off the ground. Any new guard must still meet current height and baluster spacing rules, so we remove the old rail, inspect the posts and their bolts, and reinforce what has loosened. The deck stays as it is.
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 Most of the deck failures we get called out for in Beaverton start at the ledger, the single board lagged to the house that carries the deck’s entire load back into the wall framing. On the flat valley floor here, water does not run off the way it would on a slope. It sits at grade and seeps slowly, and a ledger flashed backward lets that moisture track in behind the board, into the rim joist and the sill plate, where nothing shows from the yard. In the tighter side yards common to newer townhome infill, there is also less airflow to dry that wall out between storms. Bit by bit the deck pulls away from the house while the hidden framing turns soft. That is why we open up the ledger first on any rebuild, and why a new build gets its flashing and through-bolts done without shortcuts, since it is the one joint that lets a deck down before anything looks wrong above it.
This is the section for weighing real options. There are four decisions in total, and only one touches the surface under your feet.
Start with what nobody ever lays eyes on again, the framing itself, because it has more say over a deck’s lifespan than the surface ever will. We cut it from pressure-treated stock, seat each joist inside a galvanized hanger rather than toenailing through the end, and require every hanger and screw to be rated hot-dip galvanized or stainless. Treated lumber holds enough copper to chew through ordinary zinc within a handful of seasons, leaving a corroded hanger that looks fine from above while holding almost nothing. A run of flashing tape across the top edge of every joist adds very little to the bill and keeps that one surface, the slowest part of the frame to ever dry, from soaking straight through each winter.
Below the framing sit the footings, which decide the lifespan of everything resting on top of them even though nobody will ever lay eyes on them again either. Because so much of Beaverton is flat valley floor, rainwater has no slope to run down, so it settles at grade and lingers rather than clearing out the way it would on a hillside. Holes get bored to the depth the city’s permit specifies, filled with real concrete, and each post lands on a standoff base rather than resting directly on the pad. Skip that base and set a post straight into saturated soil, and within a handful of years that single shortcut is very often the reason an otherwise sound-looking deck has to come out early.
Only one part of all this actually gets walked on, the decking surface, which is why most homeowners ask about it before anything else. Pressure-treated fir sits at the bottom of the price range and keeps moving as it dries, cupping and twisting enough that it needs most of a season before a stain will hold, then regular washing and resealing from there on out. Cedar costs more and lies flatter underfoot, although the boards sold today run softer with sapwood than older stock did, so its upkeep eventually catches up to fir anyway. Capped composite demands the biggest check at purchase and almost nothing afterward, no splinters, no yearly reseal, no gray weathering, though it will warm up underfoot on a rare sunny stretch. Here is the honest comparison: not the price tag per board, but whether you are the sort of owner who will actually keep a wash-and-reseal routine going year after year.
Railing is largely a matter of what the view past the deck’s edge should do, open up or screen out. Plain wood is the least costly option and asks for the same care as the decking itself. Most owners settle on black powder-coated aluminum, since the narrow uprights barely register against a fence line or a hedge and never ask for upkeep. Full visibility comes from cable or glass, the priciest choices, each carrying its own spacing rules for posts and infill that a layout designed for ordinary wood balusters may not meet. None of that changes the baseline figures, though: code fixes both the rail height and how far apart the balusters can sit.
Two small decisions are worth locking in before the framing closes up rather than revisiting them afterward. A stair run costs more than its footprint implies, since each tread is a miniature framing project of its own, and a gentle, wide staircase runs more than a cramped, steep one while making the difference between steps people actually use and steps they avoid. The other is any wiring, a low-voltage strip under the rail cap, a weatherproof receptacle, a fan if a roof goes overhead, all of it nearly free to install while the joists sit open and genuinely annoying to retrofit once the decking is screwed down.
What you see here is a genuine Evergreen build, chosen for this page because a single photograph manages to catch a finished deck and a weatherproofed shelter above it together, which is exactly the pairing this page is about.
Look first at what carries the gazebo overhead: four wood posts draped with dark mesh curtains, bearing its entire weight straight down onto the deck surface instead of resting on footings poured just for it. Sizing the joists for that extra load got settled before a single deck board was ever fastened down, which is about as plain a proof as you will find that a cover ranks as a structural decision rather than something bolted on as an afterthought. Then there is the trim running along the outer edge and wrapping around both wide, shallow steps down to the bare dirt. That detail, known in the trade as picture-framing, pushes the price up because every field board needs a precise cut to die into it cleanly and the joists under that outer edge need doubling to carry the extra weight. Small as it looks, that one choice is the difference between a deck that reads as finished and a stack of lumber someone forgot to trim out.
Treated fir and cedar win on sticker price and can be sanded down and refinished again and again, but only an owner willing to wash and reseal on an honest schedule gets years out of either one in our climate. Composite flips that trade: pay more up front and the moss, graying and splintering that plague bare wood out here simply stop being your problem. Neither choice is wrong, and neither one changes the part that matters most. Whichever decking goes on top, the structure holding it up is wood either way, and how carefully that structure was built, not the boards themselves, is what decides how long the whole deck actually lasts.
October through May is both Beaverton’s wet season and the stretch when a bare patio sits empty. Put a solid roof overhead, flashed where it meets the house and standing on posts set over real footings, and that outdoor space stays in use for most of the year instead of just the dry months. A cover like this is structural, tied directly into the house frame rather than resting on its own, so the City of Beaverton requires a permit through its Building Division before work starts. We draw the plans, submit for that permit, and build the whole thing as one project.
Size, how far the deck sits above the ground, and the decking material you pick drive most of the final number. A straightforward reboard over a sound existing frame near grade sits at the bottom of the range. New footings, tall posts, a stair run, or tearing out and replacing a rotted frame all push it upward. Composite adds to the material cost while removing the yearly maintenance bill. If another contractor already gave you a number in writing, bring it along. We match or beat most written estimates by 10 percent, in writing.
The boards themselves are rarely where the money actually goes, even though that is the first figure most homeowners ask about. Labor and framing take the largest share, cutting and hanging joists, standing and bracing beams and posts, and building a stair run, which packs more hours into a square foot than any other part of the job. Footings and the digging they require come next. Then come the decking and fasteners, followed by the railing, which gets underbid more often than any other line item because it prices by the linear foot and a deck has a great many linear feet. Finish work closes it out, skirting, lighting, a gate, and the trim pieces that close up the open framing underneath.
That is how two decks measuring the exact same square footage can land far apart in price. On the flat lots common to Beaverton, height differences usually come from design choices rather than the slope of the yard, so a deck built a few feet up with a full stair run will always cost more than one sitting flush with a patio slab, even on identical ground. When the budget is fixed, the cheapest honest way to save is almost always to lower the deck or simplify its shape, not to change the surface underfoot.
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Almost nothing about this project happens inside your house, which makes a deck one of the easiest builds to live alongside day to day. Here is the order it typically follows.
We lock in the footprint, height, stair placement and railing style first, then submit drawings through the City of Beaverton’s Electronic Permitting System for review by the Building Division. Any deck fastened to the house, or any roofed cover, has to clear that step, and it is the one part of the schedule that runs on the city’s timeline rather than ours.
Lines go up on stakes, then the footing holes get bored to the depth the city’s permit calls for, concrete goes in, and post bases get set while it is still wet. A stretch of rain can push this day back a little, since concrete will not cure properly if it is standing in water.
The ledger gets bolted through and flashed against the house wall, posts and beams go up plumb and braced, and the joists drop into their hangers with a strip of tape across each top edge. An inspector has to see every one of those connections while they are still open to view, which is the entire reason we build in this sequence rather than any other.
Boards go down one at a time across the surface, a trim edge closes off the perimeter, and the stairs get shaped and fitted at the very end. By the close of this stage, what was an open frame finally looks like a finished deck.
The rail assembly goes up last of all, posts first, then the cap, then whatever fills the space between them, and after that come the smaller touches: a skirt hiding the gap underneath, a line of low-voltage lighting, a gate tacked on if the layout calls for one. None of this eats much time, yet it is exactly the stage that turns a technically complete frame into a deck that actually looks finished.
Before the crew leaves for the day, every scrap of cutoff lumber, the soil pulled from the footing holes, and the dumpster itself all go with them. What is left behind is a finished deck, which we walk through with you next to the estimate line by line. For anyone who chose a wood surface, that is also when we tell you honestly how many weeks to let it season before the first coat of sealer goes down.
Often, yes, and keeping it saves a meaningful chunk of the budget. We get underneath first and check every structural piece, the ledger at the house, the beams, the posts and the footings, looking for soft spots and for any shift in level. On the flat lots common to Beaverton, water that cannot run off a slope tends to sit right at the base of the posts, so that is where we look hardest. Once we know what is actually down there, we tell you plainly whether the frame stays, gets partly replaced, or needs a full rebuild, rather than guessing from the top.
In most cases, yes. A deck fastened to the house, one that stands more than a single low step above grade, or any roofed patio cover all need review, since real structural loads are involved. Beaverton runs its own permitting rather than leaving it to Washington County, so plans go through the city’s Building Division using its Electronic Permitting System. As a contractor licensed in Oregon, CCB #262707, we prepare the drawings, submit through that system, and schedule the framing and final inspections ourselves. A small platform resting flat on the ground, unattached to the house, can sometimes be exempt.
Plan on somewhere between a handful of days and roughly two weeks of work on site, depending mainly on the size, how many footings are needed, and how the weather cooperates. You get an actual schedule built into your estimate rather than a vague range. And once a patio cover has its roof on, that crew keeps working underneath through rain that would otherwise stall an open footing pour.
Yes, it is worth checking out before it gets worse. Noticeable give usually means the framing was undersized for its span to begin with, or that moisture sitting near the base of the posts on a flat lot has started softening the wood. If you can safely get a look underneath, a few clear photos of the joists and hangers will tell us a lot before anyone drives out, and we will give you an honest read on what we see.
That depends far more on the frame than on whatever surface sits on top of it. Build the frame in pressure-treated stock with a properly flashed ledger, taped joists, corrosion-resistant hangers, and posts set clear of standing water on footings dug to real depth, and it will outlast two or three decking surfaces laid over it. A wood top that actually gets washed and resealed on schedule holds up for a long stretch; left alone through thirty-six to forty inches of rain a year on ground that drains slowly, it turns gray and soft well ahead of schedule. Composite outlasts either option and still depends on that same frame underneath, which is why the framing, not the boards, is where the real conversation belongs.
Often it can. Where there is enough height to spare and the slab still sheds water away from the house rather than toward it, we frame a low deck on sleepers directly over the concrete, which skips the digging and the footings entirely. A slab that has heaved, cracked badly, or now tips rainwater back at the foundation is a different situation, and on Beaverton’s flat lots that backward pitch is common enough to check for. We fix that drainage problem first, since sealing a new deck down over it just hides the issue against your foundation.
It can, though waiting rarely makes financial sense. A cover needs support from somewhere, and that support comes either from the deck’s existing joists or from posts set apart just for it, so whichever path gets chosen, the structure underneath has to be sized for that extra weight from the start. Hold off and bolt one on down the road, and reaching the structure again almost always means prying loose boards that were already screwed in place and finished, so the labor behind those boards effectively gets paid for a second time.
On flat ground like most of Beaverton sits on, water does not drain off a slope the way it would in a hillier town. It spreads out and lingers close to grade instead. A deck built low to the yard, or one shaded by a neighboring fence or structure, can sit in that lingering dampness for days after a storm has passed, which is exactly the setup algae and moss need. A clear gap between boards, joist tape underneath, and a real wash once the wettest stretch eases will keep most of it in check. If one corner of your yard simply never drains well, regrading or adding a drain near the footings does more good than any amount of extra sealing.
Reaching Beaverton from our shop on SE 184th Avenue means a longer trip than our closer jobs, over the Columbia on I-205, then straight through the Portland metro on Highway 26 heading west, a route the crew knows well even though it eats more drive time than a job in east Vancouver would. Once there, we build throughout Beaverton: the historic Old Town core, Cedar Hills near the Nike campus, Five Oaks by the MAX Blue Line stations, Raleigh Hills, the newer Progress Ridge area, and the fast-growing South Beaverton subdivisions, plus the rest of Washington 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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Built for the wet side of the river.
Licensed and insured remodeling contractor serving Vancouver, WA and the Portland metro.
Oregon CCB #262707 · WA Lic. #EVERGRS757MCEvergreen Renewal Services LLC
505 SE 184th Ave Unit 320
Vancouver, WA 98683
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