Deck inspection in St. Louis: is your deck safe?
Most home inspectors give a deck a quick look from the yard and move on. We repair decks that got signed off that way every single year. A deck inspection from us is a real assessment of the structure, the connections, the boards, and the railings, done by the people who fix them for a living. The same visit covers the other exterior wood structures on the property, so the porch and the pergola get looked at too.
Deck safety inspection
A home inspection covers the whole house. Your deck gets a paragraph.
A general home inspector has an enormous amount of house to cover in a few hours: roof, foundation, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, appliances. The deck is one line item near the end, usually assessed by walking on it and giving the railing a shake. That is not a criticism of the trade, it is just the reality of the scope.
The trouble is that decks fail from underneath. The ledger connection to the house, the hardware holding it, the footings, the base of the posts where they meet the ground: none of that is visible from the deck surface, and all of it is where the serious problems start. Every year we get called out to repair decks that passed an inspection, sometimes recently.
We inspect decks because we repair decks. When we get underneath yours, we are looking at the same connections, hardware, and framing we replace every week, and we know what the early stage of each failure looks like.
What a real deck inspection covers
We go over the deck top to bottom, including the parts you cannot see from the surface, and we assess the rest of the exterior woodwork while we are there.
The structure
- Ledger attachment and flashing where the deck meets the house
- Footings, and whether they have settled or shifted
- Posts, including the base where they meet grade
- Beams, joists, blocking, and span
- Hangers, bolts, and fasteners for corrosion and pull-out
- Overall load path, front to back
The surface and safety
- Decking condition, rot, cupping, cracking, and soft spots
- Railing height, strength, and post attachment
- Baluster spacing and guard requirements
- Stair stringers, treads, riser height, and tread depth
- Landings, gates, and transitions
- How it all measures against current code
The inspection covers the exterior woodwork across the whole property, because the conditions that take down a deck take down everything else built the same way. Posts sitting at grade, hardware giving up, and water shed the wrong way show up on all of it.
So along with the deck we assess porches and porch steps, pergolas, screened-in porches, covered patios, fences, and any stairs and landings on the property.
When a deck safety inspection is worth it
Second opinion after a home inspection
Your inspector flagged the deck, or barely mentioned it, and you want to know what is actually going on under there.
Before you buy
A pre-purchase deck assessment tells you what you are inheriting, in time to do something about it at the negotiating table.
Before you list
Find out what a buyer’s inspector will find, on your schedule, with time to decide what to address first.
Your deck is over 15 years old
Standards for ledgers, hardware, and railings have moved. An older deck deserves a look against where the code is now.
Something changed
New bounce underfoot, a railing that moves, a corner sitting lower than it did last summer, or a hard winter behind you.
You are about to host on it
A deck full of people is the highest load it will ever carry. Worth knowing it is ready before the party, not after.
A clear picture, in plain language
You get a straight assessment of where your deck stands: what is sound, what has started to go, and what needs attention now versus what you can plan for. We show you the actual conditions we found and explain what each one means for the deck as a whole.
If the inspection turns up work worth doing, we will tell you what it takes to fix, and we will also tell you when the answer is that your deck is in good shape. A deck inspection is a paid service and it stands on its own. Whether you hire us for the repair afterward is entirely up to you.
Inspections are billed as their own service, at one flat rate that covers the whole property. Repair and rehab estimates are separate, and those are always free.
If the assessment does turn up problems, most of them are fixable without replacing the deck. Boards, railings, and stairs are routine deck repair. Even a failing beam or support is usually a targeted structural repair rather than a rebuild, and when several things have gone at once, a deck rehab restores the whole deck for 25 to 60% less than replacing it.
We inspect decks because we repair decks.
Ten years under St. Louis decks
We have spent a decade crawling under decks in this metro, which means we know how they were built here, and how they fail here.
We take on the structural work
Beams, posts, footings, and ledger connections. Because we repair them, we recognize the early stages, not just the obvious failures.
Rated 5.0, ten years in business
Angi Super Service Award 2025, and a review record built on telling people exactly what we found.
Deck inspections across St. Louis County and St. Charles County
We carry out deck safety inspections throughout West County, including Ballwin, Chesterfield, Ellisville, Wildwood, Town and Country, Des Peres, Creve Coeur, and Maryland Heights, along with Valley Park, Eureka, Grover, and Pacific. Mid County covers Kirkwood, Webster Groves, Brentwood, Clayton, and Richmond Heights, South County covers Mehlville and Oakville, and we work throughout St. Charles County.
If you are buying, selling, or simply want to know where your deck stands, we can usually get out within a few days. See the full service area.
Find out exactly where your deck stands.
Tell us about the deck and we’ll get you scheduled. Inspections are a paid service at one flat rate, covering the deck, the porch, and the rest of the exterior woodwork. If what you need instead is repair or rehab work, that estimate is free, just say so in the message.