Deck questions, straight answers
Costs, permits, footings, HOA approvals, and Michigan's rules for deck work in Troy, answered the way we answer them on site visits.
WHAT EVERY ANSWER COMES BACK TO
Code values
42-inch frost, 25 psf snow, 40 psf live load.
Real process
Emailed permits, open-hole checks, framing inspections.
Honest scopes
Repair, resurface, or replace, priced as found.
Local ground
Troy soil, Troy inspectors, Oakland County suburbs.
The FAQ
Everything asked before a Troy deck job
Typically $25-$45 per square foot installed. Frost-depth footings, railing footage, and stairs set where a job lands in that band. Below that range locally, ask hard questions about footing depth and hardware.
Typically $40-$70 per square foot installed in the Troy area. Board tier and railing choice drive most of the spread; the framing underneath is the same treated lumber either way.
Typically $3-$7 per square foot for cleaning, brightening, and finish, depending on prep condition and product. Small decks bump into job minimums. Full strip-and-sand restorations sit at the top of the range.
For anything attached to the house, elevated, or serving a door, yes. The current Michigan Residential Code exempts only a small detached platform kept low and clear of the house. Troy accepts deck permit applications by email with a signed form and a scaled plot plan.
The city charges by project value under its published fee schedule, plus a plan-review fee. Most residential decks land in the low hundreds all-in. We pass the fee through at cost and show it as its own line.
42 inches below grade, Michigan's frost depth. The county's 25 psf ground snow load and the 40 psf deck live load drive the framing sizes. Those three numbers shape almost every structural decision on a Troy deck.
Footings want unfrozen ground, so builds run about April through October. Staining wants the dry, mild windows of late spring and early fall. Winter is design, HOA approval, and permit season, and the people who use it skip the spring queue.
If you have one, assume yes for anything visible from outside. Troy recommends checking with your neighborhood association before deck and patio work and publishes a directory of them. Boards usually want a site sketch, materials, and colors. We prepare that packet.
Site work itself is measured in days. Plan review commonly takes one to three weeks and HOA boards meet on their own calendars, so plan a few weeks door to door. You get the sequence in writing up front.
By where the damage lives. Worn boards over a sound frame resurface. Small, localized rot gets cut out and treated. Rot in posts, joists, or the ledger means replacement; a rotted ledger is not a patchable condition.
Only if the frame probes sound and the joist spacing matches the board manufacturer's spec, which is often tighter than old wood-deck framing. We check both before quoting a conversion, because composite on a bad frame just moves the failure down a layer.
Yes. State law requires anyone building, altering, or repairing a residence for pay, decks included, to hold a residential builder licence, and an unlicensed builder cannot use Michigan courts to collect payment. Jobs under $600 total are the narrow exception.
Michigan's three-day cancellation right applies to sales solicited and signed at your home, under the Home Solicitation Sales Act. It is not a universal right on every contract, so read timing terms before signing anything, ours included.
It leaves in a trailer, not a burn pile. Michigan bars open burning of construction debris, and treated wood must never be burned anywhere. Old boards go to a licensed landfill; leftover stains and solvents go to household-hazardous-waste collection.
Service Area
Deck builders across Oakland County
Answers change a little with geography: soil, subdivisions, and HOA boards differ from Rochester Hills to Warren. The numbers above hold across our whole Oakland County service map; where a town differs, the site visit sorts it out before the quote does.
Troy
Rochester Hills
Rochester
Auburn Hills
Bloomfield Hills
Bloomfield Township
Birmingham
Royal Oak
Clawson
Madison Heights
Warren
Sylvan Glen
Emerald Lakes Village
Beach Forest
Raintree Village
Somerset North
Northfield Hills
Troy Meadows
Still weighing your options?
Ask us directly. A call costs nothing, the site visit is quick, and the quote arrives written and itemized either way.