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Customer Service: (253) 677-0290
By Daniel Rotaru, owner of Decks Restore. Washington contractor license CC DECKSRL797P2. Building and maintaining decks in Maple Valley and the South Sound since 2011. Every deck maintenance article I have ever read tells you to do the same two things: clean it in spring, and seal it every couple of years. That advice was written for a climate where decks dry out. Ours do not. A Maple Valley deck under Douglas fir…
By Daniel Rotaru, owner of Decks Restore. Washington contractor license CC DECKSRL797P2. Building decks in Maple Valley and the South Sound since 2011. Almost every composite client asks some version of this question, usually at the point where they have already picked the board and the railing. They want to know whether the screws will show. The honest answer is that we use both systems on almost every deck we build, and the…
By Daniel Rotaru, owner of Decks Restore. Washington contractor license CC DECKSRL797P2. Building decks in Maple Valley and the South Sound since 2011. The call I get most often from Maple Valley starts with a number that does not make sense. Someone has three quotes for the same deck. One is $18,000, one is $31,000, and the third contractor stopped answering the phone after he walked the lot. The homeowner wants to know…
An elevated deck is a different structure from a ground-level one, even when it looks similar from above. Everything a cover does to it has further to travel before it reaches the ground, and the guardrail you already have is usually standing exactly where the cover posts want to go. We’ve written separately about whether a deck can carry an acrylic cover at all. That piece applies to any deck. This one is…
Most of the acrylic patio covers we install around Tacoma go onto decks that were already there. The appeal is obvious. You get a dry outdoor room through eight months of grey weather without pouring a slab or giving up yard space. The question that almost nobody asks first is whether the deck underneath can take it. We get called out maybe a dozen times a year to look at a cover somebody…
By Daniel Rotaru, Owner and CEO at Decks Restore. WA Contractor License # CC DECKSRL797P2. Tacoma, WA. A few years ago nobody asked me about this. Now it comes up on maybe a third of my estimates, usually phrased the same way: “My neighbor got piles instead of concrete. Should we do that?” The answer depends on two things that have nothing to do with the deck. What your dirt is, and where…
By Daniel Rotaru, Owner and CEO at Decks Restore. WA Contractor License # CC DECKSRL797P2. Tacoma, WA. Updated September 2026. The lot is flat where the house sits. You walk around the side, and the back yard falls away. Somewhere past the fence line there is a view of the water, or the Olympics on a clear day, and that view is the entire reason anybody wants a deck back there. I get…
By Daniel Rotaru, Owner and CEO at Decks Restore. WA Contractor License # CC DECKSRL797P2. Tacoma, WA. Updated September 2026. Every year around the first real storm, the calls change. People stop asking what composite decking costs and start asking a version of the same question: “Should we just wait until spring?” Most of the time I tell them no. Not because I want the work, though I will admit the winter calendar…
By Daniel Rotaru, Owner and CEO at Decks Restore. WA Contractor License # CC DECKSRL797P2. Tacoma, WA. Updated September 2026. The conversation usually happens late. We are three days from decking, the frame is open, and the homeowner mentions they would like some lights in the stair risers and maybe an outlet out there for the griddle. Both of those are easy. What is not easy is doing them after the boards go…
By Daniel Rotaru, Owner and CEO at Decks Restore. WA Contractor License # CC DECKSRL797P2. Tacoma, WA. Almost every call about an aging deck opens the same way. “Can this be saved?” It is the wrong question. Nearly any deck can be saved if you spend enough. The useful question is whether saving it is a better use of your money than replacing it, and that comes down to three things I check…
By Daniel Rotaru, Owner and CEO at Decks Restore. WA Contractor License # CC DECKSRL797P2. Tacoma, WA. The call usually comes in October. Someone bought a hot tub, delivery is in eleven days, and the dealer said any solid deck will hold it. They want me to come out and confirm that, and they are hoping the visit takes fifteen minutes. I have never once been able to say yes on the spot.…
By Daniel Rotaru, Owner and CEO at Decks Restore. WA Contractor License # CC DECKSRL797P2. Tacoma, WA. The pitch is always the same. Put a ceiling under your elevated deck, gain a dry patio, hang a TV out there, use the space year round. I have installed a lot of these systems and I still think it is one of the better upgrades you can make to a Tacoma house. I have also…
By Daniel Rotaru, Owner and CEO at Decks Restore. WA Contractor License # CC DECKSRL797P2. Tacoma, WA. Almost nobody asks me about railing until the deck is framed. Then it becomes the only thing they want to talk about, because it is the part of the deck you look through every morning and put your hand on every time you carry something down the stairs. The quotes people get compare install price. Cable…
By Danu Rotari, owner of Decks Restore. Most people call me Daniel. Licensed and insured in Washington, WA LIC #CC DECKSRL797P2. I get this question at least twice a month, usually right after someone tells me they already called a general contractor and the number scared them. “Do I even need a deck contractor, or should the GC just handle it?” The honest answer is that it depends on what else you are…
By Daniel Rotaru, Owner and CEO at Decks Restore. WA Contractor License # CC DECKSRL797P2. The calls I dread are the ones that start with someone falling. A homeowner steps out onto a wet deck in October, the boards are slick with rain and a film of algae, their foot goes out from under them, and now they are asking me to fix a deck they have had for six years. It is…
By Daniel Rotaru, Owner and CEO at Decks Restore. WA Contractor License # CC DECKSRL797P2. I get asked a version of this question almost every time I drive across the Narrows. A homeowner in Gig Harbor sees a deck I built for a neighbor in Tacoma, likes it, and wants the same thing. Same boards, same railing, same price. Then I walk their lot, see how close they sit to the water, and…
By Daniel, lead builder at Decks Restore. Licensed and insured in Washington, WA LIC #CC DECKSRL797P2. The phrase “free estimate” got watered down somewhere along the way. A lot of companies treat it as a sales call: somebody shows up, glances at your yard, asks your budget, and emails a single number that may or may not survive contact with the actual job. We do it differently, and homeowners on Mercer Island are…
By Daniel, lead builder at Decks Restore. Licensed and insured in Washington, WA LIC #CC DECKSRL797P2. People on Mercer Island tend to worry about the boards. Will the wood gray, will the composite fade, what stain holds up. Fair questions. But in fifteen years of tearing decks apart on this island, the boards are almost never what failed first. It is the metal underneath. You live on a chunk of land sitting in…
By Daniel Rotaru, Owner and CEO at Decks Restore WA Contractor License # CC DECKSRL797P2 Every spring I get the same call. Sometimes three or four in a single week. A Tacoma homeowner finally gets a dry weekend after six months of clouds, drags the pressure washer out of the garage, hits the deck, and panics halfway through. The boards look worse than when they started. Fuzzy along the grain. Streaked in patches.…
By Daniel Rotaru, Owner and CEO at Decks Restore WA Contractor License # CC DECKSRL797P2 Every week somebody calls me and asks which composite decking brand is best. Trex, TimberTech, or Fiberon. The reviews online say all three are great. The guy at the lumber yard tells you whatever brand his store happens to stock the most of. Manufacturer warranties read like they were written by lawyers who never plan to pay one…
By Daniel Rotaru, Owner and CEO at Decks Restore WA Contractor License # CC DECKSRL797P2 I’ve built both kinds of rooftop deck in Tacoma. A cedar one on sleepers, on a townhouse over by North 30th. A porcelain paver job on a pedestal system over a flat membrane roof, Stadium District. Same neighborhood, basically the same rain, and the same question on the front end from both homeowners. Which one actually wins on…
By Daniel Rotaru Owner and CEO at Decks Restore. Most of the ADU deck calls I get in Federal Way start the same way. Somebody’s mom is moving in, or an adult kid is coming back from out of state, and the family wants the backyard cottage to feel like a real home, not a granny flat with a 36-inch concrete step out the back door. Then they ask if I can “just…
I get a call about once a week from a Tacoma homeowner who just noticed something off about their deck. A board feels soft. A railing wobbles a little more than last summer. There’s a gap forming where the deck meets the house. Most of these calls end with me reassuring them it’s fine for now, and they should put it on the maintenance list for spring. A few end with me telling…
If you live within a mile of the water in Tacoma, the deck you build is going to fight a war the rest of Pierce County never has to think about. Salt air, fog, and 38 inches of rain a year work on every fastener, joist hanger, and board you put down. Materials your neighbor used four miles inland will start failing on your house in five to seven years. We’ve torn out…
Introduction Most pool decks I see in Tacoma don’t need to be replaced. They need to be resurfaced. The slab underneath is usually fine. It’s the surface on top that’s cracked or faded or gone slick when it rains. I’m Daniel. I run Decks Restore. We’ve been resurfacing pool decks across Tacoma, Gig Harbor, Federal Way, Puyallup, and the rest of the South Sound for over ten years. This is the same conversation…
If you live in Tacoma, you know the drill. We love our “liquid sunshine,” but our decks? Not so much. If you’re staring out your back window wondering if your deck is a DIY project waiting to happen or a safety hazard, you’re asking the right question: How much time does this thing really have left? In a drier climate, a deck might live a long, easy life. But here in the PNW,…
Building a deck is supposed to be about summer BBQs and morning coffee, but before you pick out the cedar or composite, you’ve got to deal with the “fun” part: paperwork. If you’re tackling deck building DuPage County, IL style, you’ll find the vibe is quite a bit different than out west in Pierce County, WA. While the wood stays the same, the local “rules of the game” change the moment you cross…
You got it. Let’s strip away the “corporate blog” structure entirely. This version is written like a conversation over a back fence—honest, a little bit gritty, and focused on the actual feeling of living in Renton and dealing with the Pacific Northwest weather. No more bulleted lists that feel like a brochure. Just the truth. Your Deck is Tired. (Honestly, Same.) If you live in Renton, you know the drill. We get those…
If you’ve lived in Federal Way for more than a single season, you know the “Washington Shuffle”: that frantic dash to move the cushions inside the second a gray cloud drifts over. Installing an acrylic patio cover is the ultimate way to end that dance, letting you soak up every drop of natural light while the rain bounces harmlessly off the roof. At Decks Restore, we’re big fans of these covers, but we’ve…
If you live in Tacoma, you know the drill: we get a few glorious months of sunshine, and the rest of the year is a battle against the “Big Gray.” When you’re standing in your backyard trying to decide what material to use for a new deck, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by technical specs. At Decks Restore, we’ve spent years literal years scrubbing moss and sealing planks across Pierce County. We’ve seen…