Benchmark Deck & Frame · Corbett Landing & Mill Shoals · Established 2011 · Lic. #BC-4471
A deck is arithmetic you stand on.
Benchmark publishes the numbers first: footing depth by the county frost map, cantilever by the quarter-span rule, guard height by the drop. Composite, cedar and pressure-treated, built to tolerances we print on the quote and check with a level at the walkthrough.
The tolerance sheet and the frost-map excerpt ship with every quote · Corbett Landing & Mill Shoals · (555) 521-8830 · desk@benchmarkdecks.example
Services
What we build, with the number attached
01
Composite decks — from $59/sq ft
Capped boards gapped for the river valley’s humidity rather than the brochure’s, joists at twelve-inch centres under any diagonal, and a picture-frame border mitred at every corner so no cut end faces the garden.
02
Cedar & pressure-treated — from $52 and $41/sq ft
Kiln-dried 5/4×6 cedar plugged and oiled at handover; pressure-treated for the honest budget build, stain every third summer named on the sheet. Both quoted beside the composite on one drawing.
03
Footings by the frost map — helical or poured
Poured sono-tubes at 48 inches where the auger can travel; helical piers torqued to the gauge reading for fenced and finished yards, with no cure days and no spoil on the garden. The soil decides, and the quote says which and why.
04
Rails, guards & lighting — from $112/ln ft
Aluminum and cable rail installed with the blocking code asks for, guards at 36 inches wherever the walking surface passes 30 above grade, and low-voltage runs wired before the boards go down.
The ten-year cost of 400 square feet
Composite, installed≈ $25,200
one wash a season, no stain ever
Cedar, installed & oiled≈ $21,600 + 5 days
a day of oil every second spring
Pressure-treated, installed & stained≈ $17,200 + 7 days
stain every third summer
Difference by year tenunder 10%
money in, Saturdays out, resale back
The decade math
Wood is cheaper on day one. Days add up.
Four hundred square feet, installed, maintained, and sold again — the honest arithmetic we hand every customer before they choose a board. Cedar and pressure-treated buy their lower price back in weekends; composite buys the weekends back over ten years. We install all three well, which is the only reason you should believe the table.
Corbett Landing · Mill Shoals · 2024–2026
Signed, then photographed
Six builds from the tolerance sheet’s own folder. Ask at the measure and we will lend you the address of the one nearest your road — the level reading at handover is written beside it.
How a build goes
Four movements, one tolerance
The same sequence on every job, and the same quarter-inch promise at the end of it — printed on the quote, checked with a ten-foot level at the walkthrough.
The measure & the frost excerpt
Tape, grade shot and the county frost-map page photocopied into your folder. You leave with a feasibility sketch and a budget band, free, whoever builds the deck.
The drawing & the fixed number
A scaled plan with your furniture on it and one price that already carries the slope, the pier count and the access. It moves only if you move the plan.
Footings & frame
Poured at 48 inches or helical torqued to the gauge — the soil decides, the quote names it. Frame at twelve-inch centres, blocking at every rail post, crowns up.
Boards, rail, the level walk
Boards gapped to the valley, guards at 36 inches where the drop asks, then the ten-foot level across the field: a quarter inch over ten feet or we fix it before you see it.
Printed on the back of every quote we write — because a promise you can check with a level is worth more than an adjective you cannot.
The tolerance sheet was the whole reason we hired them — every other quote was adjectives, and this one was a quarter-inch promise with a level check at the end. The walkthrough took twenty minutes because there was nothing to argue about.
Our yard slopes four feet corner to corner, and Benchmark was the only crew that priced the steps as structure instead of styling. Two levels, one drawing, one number — and the rail heights pass the drop-side rule with an inch to spare.
They torqued the helical piers to the reading written in my folder and showed me the gauge — no concrete truck ever touched the garden. Staked to swept in nine working days, and the folder has the level readings to prove it.
Asked with the tape out
Helical or concrete footings — which one is under my deck?
The soil and the access decide. Helical piers torque to a measured capacity with no cure days and no excavation — the right call for fenced yards, finished gardens and anything near old foundations — at roughly twenty-two dollars a pier more. Poured sono-tubes at 48 inches win on price where the auger can travel. The quote names which, and why.
How far can the deck cantilever past its beam?
A quarter of the back span, and never more than 24 inches on residential 2×10 joists — the rule every inspector in this county checks against. Past that you are borrowing stiffness from the guardrail, and we decline to borrow. The floating look is a framing decision, not a style one.
Why publish tolerances instead of just building to them?
Because level is checkable and adjectives are not. A deck that still reads level in year five was arithmetic on day one — footing depth, cantilever, blocking — and a customer holding a tape and our sheet can hold us to it. That is the entire sales strategy.
What does a sloped yard do to the price?
Steps, rail footage and pier length — each its own line on the fixed quote, never an average buried in the square-foot rate. The measure prices the slope we can see, and the number survives it.
Measure twice, quote once.
Send the yard and the rough size — a line-itemed quote with the tolerance sheet attached comes back inside two business days, and the measure visit turns it into a fixed number. Corbett Landing, Mill Shoals and the valley between.