Read this before you print anything
You still need a builder. This site does not build decks.
That is worth saying plainly, because a tool that draws a deck and prices it can easily leave the impression that something has been arranged. Nothing has. What you have made is a good description of what you want, which is more than most people arrive with, and it is still only a piece of paper until somebody with a truck agrees to do it.
The honest summary
This site gives you a drawing, a rough cost so you know what kind of project this is, and a list of questions with the answers left blank. You hand that to builders you find yourself. They quote. You choose. You sign a contract with them, not with us.
There is nothing here that books a builder, holds a date, or takes a deposit, and nothing in your design or your request is sent anywhere.
Finding three builders
Three is the number. One quote is not a comparison, two is a coin toss, and past four you are wasting everyone's afternoon including your own.
Ask your neighbours
The best source there is. A deck you can walk up to and touch, built two years ago, with an owner who will tell you the truth about how it went. Knock on the door of the nicest deck on your street.
Ask the lumber yard
Not the big box store, the contractor yard. The people at the counter know which builders pay their bills and which ones come back for more material because they measured wrong.
Look for a business, not an ad
A registered Alberta business name, a real address, a phone that gets answered, and a few years of history. Then check it: the Alberta corporate registry will tell you whether the company exists and since when.
Check the two certificates first
Liability insurance and a WCB clearance letter, sent to you by the insurer and by WCB, not photographed by the builder. Ask for both before you book a site visit, not after.
Be wary of the door knocker
Somebody who turns up unasked with leftover material from a job down the road is a pattern, and it rarely ends well. In Alberta a door to door sale has a cooling off period. Use it.
Give everyone the same paper
The whole method only works if all three price the same drawing with the same questions. Do not describe it differently to each one, and do not tell the second one what the first one said.
What to expect once you send it
- A phone call, usually within a few days
Most builders will want to see the yard before they put a number on anything, and they are right to. A quote written without a site visit is a guess that will be revised later, which is the thing you are trying to avoid.
- A visit of about an hour
They measure, look at the wall where the deck attaches, check the slope of the ground and look for the gas meter and the electrical service. Have the questions page printed and in your hand.
- A written quote, a week or two later
Anything longer than two weeks with no contact is information about how the job will go. Chase it once, politely, then move on.
- Read the three side by side
Not the totals. Read what each one includes and excludes, read their answers to your questions, and read how carefully they wrote. Then look at the totals.
- A contract before any money
Scope, drawings, price, schedule, payment stages, warranty, and how changes get approved. If any of those is missing, it is not finished.
How to read three quotes
The cheapest one is a question, not an answer. When one number sits well below the others, something is different, and it is almost always the scope. Find what is missing before you decide it is a bargain.
Compare exclusions first. Old deck removal, landscaping repair, permit fees, the bin, electrical, gas, stain. Any of them left out of one quote and included in another will move the totals by thousands.
Compare the answers, not the promises. The builder who wrote three careful sentences about what happens when a footing hole hits a rock is telling you how the whole job will be run.
A quote with no dates is not a quote. Ask again. If the second answer is also vague, you have learned something.
Things that are genuinely worth paying more for
Flashing over the ledger. The board that bolts the deck to your house. Done badly it rots the house, not the deck, and that repair costs multiples of the deck.
Footings done properly. Below the frost line, on undisturbed ground. This is the part that can never be fixed later without taking the deck apart.
Hot dip galvanised or stainless hardware. Modern treated wood chews through ordinary fasteners. The upgrade costs very little now and everything later.
A permit where one is needed. An unpermitted deck turns up when you sell the house, at the worst possible moment.
Where your request goes from here
Only where you take it. The builders you choose are the people who answer it.
You send it. Print the request, or choose Save as PDF in the print dialogue and attach it to an email. This site does not send it to anyone.
They reach you. The name, phone, email and best way to reach you that you put on the request are how each builder gets in touch.
Keep a copy. Your design is kept in this browser, on this device. Clearing your browsing data removes it, so print the request while you are happy with it.
Your builder checks every part. No engineer or city has looked at this design. The request asks each builder to say where anything is wrong, impractical or against the code.
The estimate stays with you. The figure on the design page is a working estimate for you to check, not a quote. It is left off the request, so it cannot anchor anyone's price.
Questions about this site: email office@kehew.ca. Questions about your deck go to your builders.