Local Deck Contractors | Garage Builders Maine

The first thing to look for in a deck contractor is a straight answer to this one. The best decking material for most Maine homes is PVC composite, specifically TimberTech or AZEK. It holds up to the freeze-thaw cycle without the yearly staining pressure-treated wood demands, and the maintenance you skip compounds every year you own it. Wood is still the right pick on a tight budget or a deck under about 150 square feet.

Deck footings in Maine go to four feet, the same frost depth a house foundation answers to, because deck posts fall under the same requirement. We set helical piles on nearly every job, which a sub installs in about an hour, and we pour a concrete pier only where the situation calls for it. We will not build on floating deck blocks.

Because framing is the cheapest part of a deck and the most expensive thing to redo. Putting new composite on top of joists that are already twenty years old means the surface outlives the structure holding it up. We say no to this nine times out of ten, and the tenth is a frame we would have built ourselves.

Joist tape goes on every joist so water sheds off the frame rather than sitting in it. FastenMaster's Deck Frame Coating is the faster equivalent, a water-based roll-on that is workable in about twenty minutes and covers roughly 450 linear feet of 2x per gallon. Either way, the frame gets a water barrier before a board goes down.

A multi-level deck steps down a grade instead of forcing one long staircase, which is why it suits a sloped Maine lot. The cost driver is height rather than levels: past roughly two feet off the ground, staging adds about one crew day, and that day is a much bigger share of a small job than a large one.

Westbury aluminum and Westbury cable railing are our first picks, because they last and because cable gives back a view a picket rail has been chopping up. TimberTech Radiance Rail and TimberTech classic composite are the alternatives when the rail should match the decking.

Yes, on an exposed second-story frame where the structure is visible. Owens Corning Lumber for Deck Framing is a rotproof fiberglass composite that runs about five times pressure-treated cost, and ProWood TrueFrame joists are kiln-dried after treatment and planed straight, which is a smaller premium for a real gain in straightness.

You almost always need a permit for a new deck in Maine, and most towns we serve keep the process simple. A same-footprint replacement is usually a form and a fee. A few towns set the permit fee as a percentage of total project price, which becomes a real line item on a large deck, so we build the fee into the estimate rather than surprising you with it.

For most homeowners in this market, yes. Composite costs more the day it goes down and less every year after, because it avoids the recurring staining and sealing pressure-treated wood needs to survive the freeze-thaw cycle. The exception is a small deck or a firm budget, where wood is the honest answer.

Most decks run one to three weeks on site once the permit is in hand. Helical piles go in inside a day. Stairs, railing, and trim take longer than homeowners expect, because that is where the finish work lives.

Yes. We size the framing and the footings for the additional load during design, rather than discovering it after the frame is up. Tell us at the estimate, even if the tub is two years away.

Hidden clips are our normal method, because they leave a clean surface. On PVC we face-screw and plug instead, since PVC moves more than other boards and that is the correct practice for it. The finished deck still reads clean, and the fastening actually holds.

Trimming so no end grain shows, at minimum under the rim, in the same decking material rather than lattice. It costs real money and it is the difference between a deck that looks finished and one that looks nearly finished.

We build decks across twenty towns in Kennebec, Lincoln and Sagadahoc counties, from Augusta and Winthrop down through Gardiner and Richmond to Wiscasset. The town list above links to what a deck job looks like in each one, because permitting and site conditions genuinely differ from town to town.

Spring through fall is the build season, and earlier is better. Frost-depth pile work has to be finished before the ground freezes, so a project that starts in late October usually becomes a spring project, and we would rather say that than take a deposit on a promise.

Yes, and those jobs start with the shoreland zoning permit rather than the design. Most towns in our area require one within a set distance of the water, on top of the standard building permit, and the setback often decides where a deck can sit at all.