Larchline Deck Co. · Harkness Bend & Tobin Vale · The yard behind the grain elevator
Every deck is a materials decision wearing a furniture costume.
THE YARD IS OPEN SATURDAYS, EIGHT TO ONE — walk the stacks, put your thumb on the growth rings, take a sample board home. The kettle is on, and nobody will ask you to decide anything before Tuesday.
Rates per square foot, built
Four species, four honest decades
Every Larchline quote names the species twice — once in English and once in Latin — because “hardwood” and “cedar” are words that have sold a lot of soft pine at hardwood prices. The rates below are for decks built to the valley’s frost line and snow load, fasteners included, and the Saturday stack holds a board of each.
The yard rate, installed
Western red cedar, 5/4×6from $56/sq ft
Thuja plicata · kiln-dried, two-knot face · oiled at handover
Ipe, 1×6from $88/sq ft
Handroanthus · density that sinks in water · hidden clips
PVC board, grain-etchedfrom $67/sq ft
The no-maintenance answer · solid core, never hollow
Pressure-treated pine, premium gradefrom $41/sq ft
The honest budget board · kiln-dried after treatment
Cable rail, 316 stainlessfrom $142/ln ft
Marine grade for the valley’s road salt
Behind the grain elevator, since 2011
The yard, in figures
What we do
Three boards, three honest decades
Cedar — the smell everybody wants
Thuja plicata, kiln-dried, two-knot face, oiled before the first summer and every second spring after. It is the board that makes an evening feel like a cabin, and it repays the oiling calendar like a classic car. Twenty-five honest years if you feed it; fifteen pretty ones if you do not.
Ipe — the one your grandchildren inherit
A density that sinks in water, a fire rating near concrete, and a weathering path that ends silver instead of grey-green. It is the most expensive line in the yard and the cheapest per decade: the sixty-year file on our wall has never once needed a board replaced.
PVC — the Saturdays answer
Grain-etched solid board for the owner whose favourite tool is the garden hose. No oiling, no staining, no splinters — and, honestly, no smell of cedar and no patina, which is the trade we print on the quote so you make it with open eyes.
How a build goes
From yard walk to first cookout
Frost footings to the valley’s 42-inch line, frames at twelve-inch centres, and the boards gapped with a spacer cut for August humidity — the movement belongs in the plan, not in the warranty argument.
Walk the yard
A Saturday, a sample board home, and a budget band before anybody measures anything. The species decision is made with your thumb, not our margin.
The drawing and the number
A scaled plan with your table on it, footings drawn to the frost line, one fixed price that names species, cut and fastener — in writing, twice.
Footings, frame, boards
Sono-tubes to 42 inches, the frame at twelve-inch centres, boards set with the valley’s spacer. The crew that starts is the crew that finishes the boards.
Oiling and the handover book
Cedar leaves oiled; ipe leaves bare with the silvering explained; PVC leaves with the hose. Every deck leaves with a care book written for its species.
2024 — 2026, photographed at handover
Decks from the yard books
The species line
The invoice names the species, the Latin, the cut and the fastener — and if the board that arrives is not the board on that line, we re-deck the project at our cost. A “hardwood” sold as a cedar is the oldest trick in the trade, and it does not survive paperwork like this.
Why we publish ours
The yard keeps the receipts
Any shop can promise honesty; a yard that sells four species and argues against all of them daily has to show the paperwork instead. Every quote names the Latin, the cut and the fastener, every invoice repeats it, and the Saturday stack holds a board of each so the words have something to point at. It is slower than a brochure and it is the whole reason the yard still exists.
I asked four builders for a cedar deck and got four prices. Larchline was the only one who handed me a board, told me to smell it, and then tried to talk me out of it — my slope faces the road, they said, and PVC would stop looking at me sideways every August. I took the cedar anyway, and the oiling calendar is printed in the care book like a service manual. Three summers in, it is the best-kept thing I own.
Which board should I actually choose?
Start from your Saturdays. If you like maintaining a thing you love, cedar. If you want to inherit it, ipe. If the hose is your favourite tool, PVC. If the budget is the budget, premium pressure-treated, done to the same frame as everything else — the yard sells all four and argues against each of them daily.
Why does the gap matter so much?
Wood moves with humidity — it swells in the valley’s August and shrinks every February. Gapped to the brochure’s dry-country number, your boards touch by the second summer and cup by the third. We cut the spacer to this valley’s swing, so the gap is right in the season you use the deck, not the one the catalogue photographed it in.
Is PVC really “no maintenance”?
No board is nothing — but PVC is close: wash it, mind the grill grease, check the fasteners at year five. What it honestly costs you is character. It never silvers, never smells like anything, and always looks exactly like the day it went down. We print that trade on the quote because it is the one people regret.
Can I keep my old frame and re-board it?
Sometimes — and the yard check is free. If the frame is true, dry and to the current centres, re-boarding with new fasteners is half the price of a rebuild. If the posts rot below grade or the joists crowned, new boards on a tired frame is money thrown at the wrong decade, and we say which yours is on the spot.
What fasteners do you use?
Stainless or coated, matched to the board: 305 at minimum, 316 near the road salt and on cable rail, and the specific coated screws each manufacturer warrants — mixed metallurgy near cedar tannins streaks the wood black in a season, which is why the invoice names the fastener beside the species.
The five every Saturday hears
Asked over the yard gate
Anything stranger, the yard answers Saturday mornings or the form below any hour at all — usually before the kettle cools.
The yard behind the grain elevator · Saturdays eight to one, weekdays by chance · (555) 031-6604 · yard@larchlinedecks.example
Come stand on the stack
Species, rough size and the Saturday that suits you — or send the form and we will hold a board of each behind the counter with your name on it. yard@larchlinedecks.example