Truenorth Deck & Carpentry · A two-person build shop · Carden Bluff & Little Fen · Since 2015
Forty decks a year we can point at, or four hundred we cannot. We chose forty.
One build at a time, three weeks each, forty a season. The calendar is the quality control — a shop that is behind will cut the part of the job nobody photographs.
Services & rates
The rate card, in small print because it is honest
Two of us, one build at a time, and a rate card printed once a year and honoured for all of it. Your fixed number follows the yard visit — footings, haul-away and the walkthrough inside — and it does not move after you sign.
Composite deck, installedfrom $57/sq ft
hidden clips, picture-frame edge
Cedar deck, installedfrom $52/sq ft
5/4×6 western red, plugged screws
Ipe & hardwoodfrom $95/sq ft
air-dried, pre-oiled, plugged
Cable rail, installedfrom $138/ln ft
316 stainless, blocking included
Aluminum rail, installedfrom $114/ln ft
powder-coated, code blocking
Pergola, 12×14from $6,600
engineered to 40-psf snow
What we do
How a two-person build works
The drawing is half the contract
A scaled plan with your furniture on it, the pier count and the frost depth printed in the corner — yours to keep whoever builds the deck. The fixed number attaches to that drawing exactly, which is why we spend a week on it.
Footings off the frost map
Poured at 48 inches where the yard is open, or helical piers torqued to the gauge reading written in your folder where roots and fences rule out an auger. Corner posts first — they carry the most and forgive the least.
The handover hour
The two of us, a ten-foot level and a flashlight under the frame. The care sheet goes in the folder, the level reading goes beside it — and our names get stamped on the last joist, where only the next builder will ever find them.
Two build slots remain this season — the spring list opens in March · Carden Bluff, Little Fen and 25 miles around · (555) 439-6620 · north@truenorthdecks.example
Carden Bluff · Little Fen · 2024–2026
Every deck, photographed the week we finished it
Forty a season, one at a time, all of them still ours to point at. Ask for the nearest one — a two-person shop has nowhere to hide a bad build.
How the fortnight goes
Three weeks, four movements
No phases on your build overlap the neighbours’ — when we are at your yard, we are at your yard, and nothing about the job is subbed, brokered or handed down a phone tree.
The yard visit
Forty minutes with a tape, a level and the frost map — the slope shot, the access walked, the complication you already know about priced while we stand on it. Sketch and budget band go home with you.
Drawing & number
One week later: the scaled plan, the pier count, the materials list, and a single fixed price that already carries all of it. Signed, held for sixty days, attached to the drawing.
The build fortnight
Footings, frame, boards, rail — the same two people, all day, every day, until the walkthrough. Nobody else is on your build, and nothing about it is delegated.
The year-later walk
A free level check, the gate and the oil advice, and a look under the frame with the flashlight. The second visit is the warranty — it has caught two screws and one heaved pier in eleven years.
Eleven years, one deck at a time, and the same two names on every folder. When the March storm heaved half the county’s fences, our decks moved nothing — the frost map does not care who built it, and neither does the level.
A two-person crew sounded risky until I watched them work — the one who drew it is the one who framed it, and the drawing and the deck agree to the inch. They finished on a Tuesday and came back the following spring, unprompted, with a level.
Every other quote had a line called allowances. Truenorth’s had a line called pier count, with the frost-map page stapled behind it. Same money in the end as the big crews — and nothing discovered late.
They stamped their names on the last joist and told me where to find them. When we sell this house, that stamp stays in the folder with the drawing and the level reading — let the buyer go look.
Asked on the phone
Why only forty decks a season?
Because three careful weeks per build times forty is a season, and the calendar is the quality control. A shop that is behind schedule cuts the part nobody photographs — footings, blocking, flashing. We would rather close the list in May than find out what we cut in August.
Helical or poured footings — what do you charge?
Poured sono-tubes at 48 inches come standard; helical piers run about twenty-two dollars a pier more and go where fences, roots or finished gardens rule out an auger — no cure days, no spoil, torque-verified to a written reading. The visit decides on the soil, and the price prints before we dig either way.
Can the deck cantilever past its beam?
A quarter of the back span, 24 inches at the outside on residential 2×10 joists — the rule the county checks and the one we frame to. Beyond that you are borrowing stiffness from the guardrail, and we say no on the drawing rather than argue about it at the walkthrough.
What does the year-later walk cost?
Nothing, ever. A level check across the field, a flashlight under the frame, the gate oiled and the latch tuned. The second visit is what a workmanship warranty means when the two people who built the deck are also the two people answering the phone.
Put your yard on the forty.
Call the shop or send the rough size — the visit is booked around evening light, and the drawing and the fixed number land inside the week. Two slots left this season.