Building a deck

[dontlook]

Hi! We just bought a new hone so I’ll probably start posting more over here. We are looking at building a deck and have a few questions.

We have a 2-story home with a walk out basement. Backyard isn’t huge and isn’t fenced (not planning on getting one). Deck would be off the second level off the kitchen. We got quotes for a 12x24 foot deck between $28,000-35,000 which seems a bit high. We are looking at ways to cut cost including getting a smaller deck but because of a few design elements on our house the best look is going to be somewhere between 12X16 and 12x24. Other than cutting back on size we considered not adding steps down to the ground. We have access to the yard from the basement. Are we going to regret not getting steps? Would it stop you from buying a house if it had a deck with no steps? We don’t plan to sell anytime soon but are always considering resell value and appeal.

Thanks for your help!

[CrazyLucky]

We are in the process of purchasing a house with a deck on the second floor and steps down, just like you are describing. We looked at a house with a deck on the second floor and no steps. It didn't completely rule it out, but we thought that if we bought that house, we would have had to put steps. For us, the main factor was the dog. We didn't want to have to let him out the front door or go out to the basement every time he needed to go out. I think you should install a fireman's pole!

[dontlook]

Jan 22, 2021 11:02:48 GMT -5 CrazyLucky said:

We are in the process of purchasing a house with a deck on the second floor and steps down, just like you are describing. We looked at a house with a deck on the second floor and no steps. It didn't completely rule it out, but we thought that if we bought that house, we would have had to put steps. For us, the main factor was the dog. We didn't want to have to let him out the front door or go out to the basement every time he needed to go out. I think you should install a fireman's pole!

So funny! I told H would should just do a slide for kids. We don’t have a dog which I think would make a huge difference.

[simpsongal]

I'd probably spring for the steps - but I wouldn't rule out a a house that had a deck without. It would feel more like a "lookout" ya know?

[InBetweenDays]

Connection between the house and yard is huge for me. I wouldn't completely rule out a house that had a deck without stairs, but it would be a very big factor if we were comparing places.

[cosmowife]

This would be a big factor for me. Honestly, we ruled out any house with a raised deck so we wouldn’t be in the market for your house in the first place! But you should do whatever you want to do. There are always going to be people who like or do not like what you do.

[k3am]

How much money do you save by not doing the stairs down?

[dontlook]

Jan 22, 2021 12:30:06 GMT -5 k3am said:

How much money do you save by not doing the stairs down?

About 10k.

[k3am]

$10k.. that's a pretty penny. We don't have basements here, so no real experience with an elevated deck like you're talking about, but having a yard access point is something I'd prefer, but I'm not sure I'd prefer it $10k worth..

Are you able to add stairs down the road if you decide you really did want them? I honestly think it will just come down to personal preference and what your budget can handle.

[icedcoffee]

I would do steps. And I would get other quotes. We have a fairly large deck on the second floor and we paid $17k for Trex (in 2019). This included tearing down and removing an old wood deck. That quote sounds very high.

If you have a party that's on the bigger side you're not going to want people going through the house to go back to the yard. With kids it's nice to have them be able to do art on the deck and then go downstairs. Do steps. 100% I think you will regret not doing it.

Our decks is 388 square feet (14x20 and 9x12 combined--hard to explain but it's not perfectly rectangle).

Ask the contractor for ways to save money. Our old deck the stairs had a landing half way down and removing the landing saved a lot of money because the railings are actually where it gets pricey.

Anyway--shop around because that sounds high.

[dontlook]

Jan 22, 2021 13:00:50 GMT -5 k3am said:

$10k.. that's a pretty penny. We don't have basements here, so no real experience with an elevated deck like you're talking about, but having a yard access point is something I'd prefer, but I'm not sure I'd prefer it $10k worth..

Are you able to add stairs down the road if you decide you really did want them? I honestly think it will just come down to personal preference and what your budget can handle.

Adding them later is something we need to ask about. Thank you for that idea.

[dontlook]

Jan 22, 2021 13:17:13 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

I would do steps. And I would get other quotes. We have a fairly large deck on the second floor and we paid $17k for Trex (in 2019). This included tearing down and removing an old wood deck. That quote sounds very high.

If you have a party that's on the bigger side you're not going to want people going through the house to go back to the yard. With kids it's nice to have them be able to do art on the deck and then go downstairs. Do steps. 100% I think you will regret not doing it.

Our decks is 388 square feet (14x20 and 9x12 combined--hard to explain but it's not perfectly rectangle).

Ask the contractor for ways to save money. Our old deck the stairs had a landing half way down and removing the landing saved a lot of money because the railings are actually where it gets pricey.

Anyway--shop around because that sounds high.

I’m glad to hear you think it’s high. We had 2 quotes and I think we need to get a few more. We talked to the second deck company for hours yesterday trying to discuss how to bring cost down. It seems like we are falling between 7-10 on material and the rest on labor- the big labor piece being the post that go into the ground. Apparently we need to have a special company do that piece and it’s like $4k. The deck company would pay for that out of the 28-35k we pay them.

[icedcoffee]

Jan 22, 2021 13:57:42 GMT -5 dontlook said:

Jan 22, 2021 13:17:13 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

I would do steps. And I would get other quotes. We have a fairly large deck on the second floor and we paid $17k for Trex (in 2019). This included tearing down and removing an old wood deck. That quote sounds very high.

If you have a party that's on the bigger side you're not going to want people going through the house to go back to the yard. With kids it's nice to have them be able to do art on the deck and then go downstairs. Do steps. 100% I think you will regret not doing it.

Our decks is 388 square feet (14x20 and 9x12 combined--hard to explain but it's not perfectly rectangle).

Ask the contractor for ways to save money. Our old deck the stairs had a landing half way down and removing the landing saved a lot of money because the railings are actually where it gets pricey.

Anyway--shop around because that sounds high.

I’m glad to hear you think it’s high. We had 2 quotes and I think we need to get a few more. We talked to the second deck company for hours yesterday trying to discuss how to bring cost down. It seems like we are falling between 7-10 on material and the rest on labor- the big labor piece being the post that go into the ground. Apparently we need to have a special company do that piece and it’s like $4k. The deck company would pay for that out of the 28-35k we pay them.

Yeah--keep looking for sure.  I know prices have gone up this year because of Covid and increased demand and hard to get supplies, but that is still a huge difference.  I think we got 4 or 5 quotes.  We did not need a special company for posts so I don't know what that's about.  They literally just dug them by hand (I think), poured concrete and set the posts.  

There was a lot of variation between quotes.  I know it's super annoying, but I'd get several.  What was proposed was SOOOO different between companies.  We ended up with the middle of the road quote price wise but with a guy that just felt like he understood what we wanted.  We were not disappointed.  I'm also in a HCOL area.

[definitelyO]

material costs are HIGH right now.
we put in a new/replacement deck this summer. it's off the main floor and not 2nd floor. it's 450 sqft (20'x 22') with TREX and cedar/redwood rail/benches with a partial roof that was added (covers about 1/3 of the deck). we paid ~$30,000
this also included new footings, permits, inspections, electrical, etc...

[Kristinmo]

Is this a composite or wood deck? We did one 3 years ago and composite doubled the cost. We did it anyway because I didn't want to have to do upkeep.

Another option is to get one that's "stairs ready" which is what one of our neighbors did. They skipped the stairs at first but had the deck designed so it was simple to add them a couple of years later when they had the money.

[dontlook]

Jan 22, 2021 15:25:23 GMT -5 Kristinmo said:

Is this a composite or wood deck? We did one 3 years ago and composite doubled the cost. We did it anyway because I didn't want to have to do upkeep.

Another option is to get one that's "stairs ready" which is what one of our neighbors did. They skipped the stairs at first but had the deck designed so it was simple to add them a couple of years later when they had the money.

Composite. We talked about doing wood but don’t want the upkeep. I need to look into the stair ready option.

[orval]

I would also get more quotes. Maybe not a deck company that specializes -- we found those more expensive than a general contractor. We got a quote for a new deck with roof, electric, fan etc. and it was about $35k a couple years ago.
We have the same style house as you with a walkout basement and 2nd floor deck. We have stairs and needed them when we had a dog. We do use the yard so rather than going out the basment it is much easier to go down the deck stairs.

[dontlook]

Jan 22, 2021 15:43:54 GMT -5 orval said:

I would also get more quotes. Maybe not a deck company that specializes -- we found those more expensive than a general contractor. We got a quote for a new deck with roof, electric, fan etc. and it was about $35k a couple years ago.
We have the same style house as you with a walkout basement and 2nd floor deck. We have stairs and needed them when we had a dog. We do use the yard so rather than going out the basment it is much easier to go down the deck stairs.

It’s so funny. We just had our refrigerator delivered and one of the guys said his brother is a GC and could get us a quote for a deck if we were looking build one. I’m interested to see what his price comes back at compared to the deck companies.

[hbomdiggity]

Jan 22, 2021 12:46:54 GMT -5 dontlook said:

Jan 22, 2021 12:30:06 GMT -5 k3am said:

How much money do you save by not doing the stairs down?

About 10k.

That seems high for steps.

We purchased a new build that had deck without stairs. We wanted stairs. I didn’t want my kid playing in backyard and me up on deck without a way to get to him that wasn’t through the house.

We asked the builder to add stairs. The estimate he got from his deck guy must have been $4k as we agreed to split the cost and it cost us $2k.

Well well worth it.

[thejackpot]

I would want the stairs- I like to have access to the backyard from the deck. Walking around or back inside would be a bummer, especially if my kids were outside playing. I would def shop around a little bit.

[penguingrrl]

I would absolutely want the stairs, no question. I would definitely shop around and look for GCs instead of deck specialists. But what people here pay and what’s reasonable for your area may not be entirely comparable. Are you in a low lying area with a high water table? Or a rocky area? Those are things that could drive the price up for creating proper supports for a deck. I’m sure there are other factors that may play in that are regional.

[sparty04]

I think your high quote is because the price of wood is really high right now. We have a house similar to yours and did steps. Another family in our hood didn't do steps originally, but recently saw they did since having kids. I think I'd prefer steps.

This is a different situation- but we wanted to change our deck a few years ago to all Trex (right now it's a Trek/cedar combo). The price to do that was higher than what we originally paid for our deck, and it wasn't even a tear down. So just keep in mind that it may be $$ to change it in the future.

[georgeharrison]

Not from a homeowner perspective, but when I was a kid, we rented a house with an elevated deck with no steps and then another with steps. Almost identical layout of the house. Anyway, as a kid, we used those steps all the time. We didn’t use the basement much in either house, so maybe that is why.

[lilac05]

Definitely get more quotes and see if anyone is much different, but I know that building materials have skyrocketed this year.

Is waiting an option? I would probably delay the whole project until I could afford the size deck I wanted and the steps down. I think you’d regret cutting corners in both areas.

[lolalolalola]

For us, steps would be a requirement. However around here, it seems like 90% of walk out homes have decks without stairs so we are in the minority.

[bee20]

I grew up in this type of house and the deck didn't have steps. We rebulit the deck at one point and my mother was adamant that she didn't want outside stairs for security reasons. The basement door and door to the deck were both slider and there was a solid wood door between the basement stairs and the rest of the house as well as for the front door. Our neighborhood had fairly regular breakins of the sliding glass doors, your area may be different.

We had a dog, we had parties, it was fine. The other "pro" is you can use your full deck space instead of leaving a walk-through zone for the stairs. We had a table and a ton of chairs out there.

[ssmjlm]

Well in our last house we re-did the deck and added a 2nd set of steps, so I would definitely have at least 1 set.

It may be worth it to wait and see if materials come down if you don't need it done this year. That's a huge issue across the board. The elevation shouldn't really be an issue, but I grew up with walkout basements and decks.

[dontlook]

Jan 25, 2021 13:23:22 GMT -5 lolalolalola said:

For us, steps would be a requirement. However around here, it seems like 90% of walk out homes have decks without stairs so we are in the minority.

Can I ask about your set up? We had another deck guy come today and he mentioned that steps would block the windows in the basement which would block the light. Do you have this issue? Is your space dark?

[dontlook]

To those that asked, waiting is definitely an option. We considered that material cost might be driving up cost but from the quotes we got, the materials aren’t the expense part. It’s interesting. We had a GC out today so it will be a few days before we get his quote. I’ll report back.

[dontlook]

Jan 24, 2021 12:21:47 GMT -5 penguingrrl said:

I would absolutely want the stairs, no question. I would definitely shop around and look for GCs instead of deck specialists. But what people here pay and what’s reasonable for your area may not be entirely comparable. Are you in a low lying area with a high water table? Or a rocky area? Those are things that could drive the price up for creating proper supports for a deck. I’m sure there are other factors that may play in that are regional.

H (engineer) was trying to explain to me why we need special posts. Something about our water table and concrete not being sufficient. I honestly wasn’t listening bc he was engineer-speaking and it gives me a headache lol. What I took from it is it will drive up cost.

I think we landed on deck with steps being the best case scenario and our limit is $20,000. If we have to cut steps for now, we will with the understanding we may want them or we may need to be ready to put up cash if we sell to add them. We are going to get more quotes and will keep searching until we can get closer to our goal figure. That may mean we have to wait.

Thanks all! This has been helpful!!!