Western red cedar
Warm tone, ages to silver-grey, and takes a stain well. Wants re-coating every few years to stay that colour.
Grand Prairie · Dallas County · Mon–Sat 7a–7p CT
Decks, pool surrounds, & a price that holds
Grand Prairie runs nearly thirty miles from Mountain Creek Lake down to Joe Pool, and a deck at one end of the city is not the same job as a deck at the other. We build and repair decks, patio covers, pergolas and pool decks across the city and the towns around it. Tell us what you want the space to do, and you will get a written price with the structure and the surface itemised separately — before anyone picks up a tool.
01 — The approach
We dig before we quote
Grand Prairie runs nearly thirty miles north to south and the ground is not the same at both ends. Deep expansive clay in the north and east; on the higher ground toward Joe Pool, rock at footing depth. An auger that sinks through clay in minutes sits and spins on limestone, and that is the single most common reason a deck price moves after it has been agreed.
So where rock is plausible we put a test hole down at the actual post positions before quoting. It costs us an hour and it turns an estimate into a price. The rock itself is good news: a post bearing on it will not settle or heave, which is more than clay can promise.
02 — Materials
Styles & materials
Material and surface options, not photographs of our own projects. We have no portfolio to show you yet and we are not going to pass off somebody else's work as ours.
Capped composite
No staining cycle and no splinters, which is why it wins around water. Pick a light colour: a dark board beside a pool gets painful underfoot in July.
Pressure-treated pine
The structural workhorse, and what most frames are built from whatever the surface above them is.
03 — How we work
Four steps, no surprises
- 01
You tell us what the space has to do and who uses it
- 02
Site visit: grade, access, drainage, and a test hole where rock is likely
- 03
Written quote splitting structure from surface, with products named
- 04
City requirements and any association submission handled before ordering
A straightforward single-level deck is a few days on site. The honest variables sit before that: material lead time, and any city or association approval. Both go in the quote with dates.
04 — What you get in writing
“Products named, not described. The approvals your address needs and who submits them. And if the repair makes more sense than the rebuild you asked about, the quote says so.”
Our written quote · every job · no obligation
05 — Before you call
Three things worth knowing
You do not need measurements or a plan. What moves a price most is how high the back door sits above the ground, whether a vehicle can reach the work, and whether there is anything out there already that has to come out.
It also helps to know what time of day you use the yard. A patio used at lunchtime and one used at six in the evening need completely different shade, and that is a design decision rather than a budget one.
Services
What we build
Deck Building
A deck is a structure that has to hold a group of people several feet in the air for twenty years, wearing a decorative …
Deck Repair
Most decks that look finished are not. If the frame and the connection to the house are sound, replacing the surface giv…
Patio Covers
A solid cover is what turns an outdoor space from somewhere you use twice a year into part of the house. It also puts a …
Pergolas
A pergola is the cheapest real shade there is, and the difference between one that works and one that is decorative come…
Pool Decks
A pool deck is wet, barefoot and in full sun, and the three requirements that follow from that — grip, a surface that do…
Deck Staining
Ninety per cent of a good finish is what happens before the first coat goes on. Staining a deck that has not been proper…
One City, Two Kinds of Ground
Grand Prairie is long and narrow, and the ground underneath it is not consistent along its length. In the northern and eastern parts the soil behaves like most of Dallas County: deep, expansive clay that swells when it rains and shrinks when it does not, moving a few inches up and down with the seasons. Footings there have to reach below the layer that is still moving, or the deck moves with it.
Toward the south, on the higher ground that climbs toward Joe Pool Lake and the ridge beyond it, rock turns up at footing depth often enough that we treat it as likely rather than unlikely. That is not a worse situation — rock is excellent bearing, and a post founded on it is going nowhere — but it is a different method. An auger that sinks through clay in minutes will sit and spin on limestone, and the hole then needs a rock bit or a breaker.
The reason this matters to you is that it is the single most common cause of a deck quote changing after it was accepted. A contractor who priced augered footings and found rock has two choices, and one of them is asking you for more money halfway through.
So we check before we quote, not after. On any job south of the I-20 corridor, and on anything where the yard shows rock at the surface or the neighbours mention it, we put a test hole down at the actual post positions. It costs us an hour and it is the difference between a price and an estimate.
How We Put a Number On It
Every quote we write splits into two halves, and we keep them on separate lines deliberately. The structure is the footings, the posts, the beams, the joists, the hardware and the connection to the house. The surface is the decking boards, the rail infill, the skirting, the stairs' finish and the coating.
That split exists because the two halves behave completely differently over time. The structure is buried inside a finished deck, and changing any part of it later means taking the deck apart — so it is the wrong place to save money, and it is where a cheap quote is usually cheap. The surface is replaceable on a weekend in ten years' time, which makes it the honest place to adjust a budget.
What it means in practice is that if the number comes back higher than you hoped, there is a real conversation to be had rather than a flat no. Dropping from a premium composite to treated pine on the same frame is a substantial saving and costs you nothing structurally. Dropping the footing depth to hit the same number costs you the deck.
The quote also names products rather than describing them. Not 'composite decking' but the actual board, in the actual colour, so you can look it up and so a second quote can be compared against it fairly.
Shade Is Not an Optional Extra Here
A deck in North Texas without shade over at least part of it is a deck that gets used in spring and autumn and avoided in between. That is not an upsell, it is what happens: the surface is too hot, the sun is at the wrong angle after four in the afternoon, and the furniture sits unused from June to September.
So we would rather discuss the cover at the same time as the deck, even when the cover is being built next year or the year after. The reason is purely practical. A cover needs posts, the posts need footings, and the footings need to go in before there is a deck surface in the way. Deciding where they will stand now costs almost nothing; retrofitting them through a finished deck means lifting boards and often strengthening framing that was never sized to carry a roof.
The same applies to anything that runs in a conduit. A ceiling fan, downlights, a socket for a television or a pump — all trivial while the frame is open, all disruptive afterwards. We ask about them at design stage even when the answer is no, because the cost of leaving a capped conduit in place is a few dollars.
Where the budget will not carry a roofed cover, slats get most of the way there for a fraction of the price, and a pergola can be built so that a solid roof replaces the slats later without touching the posts.
Permits, Associations, and Who Does What
Two separate approvals can apply to a deck here, and they are not interchangeable. The city has its own requirements, which depend on what you are building, how high it is and how close it sits to a boundary. If your neighbourhood has a homeowners association — and most of the newer southern subdivisions do — it has its own architectural review, which is concerned with appearance rather than safety.
We do not publish the city's fees or turnaround times on this site, and we would be suspicious of anyone who does. Those figures change, they are not the same in Grand Prairie as in Arlington or Mansfield, and a number published on a web page reads as a promise. What we do instead is establish what applies to your specific address before anything is ordered, and put it in the quote in writing.
On the association side, we prepare the submission package — a plan showing position and dimensions, an elevation showing finished height, the materials named specifically and the rail detail — because that is what committees need in order to approve something quickly. Vague drawings are the main reason these reviews take weeks.
One warning worth giving in advance: approvals are usually tied to what was submitted. Changing the board or adding a foot of width on site can mean going back round, so the time to change your mind is before the package goes in, not after.
Service area
Where we work
All of Dallas County, plus the ring of towns around Grand Prairie — which reaches into Tarrant, Ellis and Johnson. Each has its own page below.
Questions
Frequently asked
Which parts of Grand Prairie do you cover?
The whole city, north to south, all of Dallas County, plus the surrounding towns — Arlington, Irving, Mansfield, Cedar Hill, Duncanville, DeSoto, Midlothian, Euless, Dalworthington Gardens and the southwest side of Dallas. If you are just outside that, call and ask; the answer depends on the size of the job.
Why does the ground matter so much in your quotes?
Because Grand Prairie runs nearly thirty miles and the ground is not the same at both ends. The north and east is deep expansive clay; toward the higher ground in the south, rock turns up at footing depth. Rock is excellent to build on and cannot be augered, so it changes the method and the cost. We put a test hole down before quoting where it is plausible.
How much does a deck cost here?
There is no useful average, because height above grade, span, ground conditions and the connection to the house move the figure more than the size does. What we can promise is a written quote with the structure and the surface itemised separately and the products named, so you can compare it fairly against anyone else's.
Do you handle the permit and the HOA submission?
We prepare the drawings and the specification for both, and we confirm what your specific address needs before anything is ordered. Some associations require the owner to be the named applicant, which we cannot change, but you should never have to work out what the submission has to contain.
Do you take small repairs, or only full builds?
Small repairs too — a few failed boards, a loose rail, a rotten bottom step, a gate that has dropped. There is no sense replacing a deck because three boards went, and we would rather do a short job well.
How soon can you start?
It depends on the material lead time and on any approval your address needs, and those are the two honest answers rather than a number designed to sound good. We put the dates in the quote in writing.
Will you tell me if I do not need the work?
Yes, and it happens regularly. A deck with a sound frame and tired boards is a resurfacing job rather than a rebuild, and a deck that just needs cleaning and re-coating is exactly that. We would rather give you the smaller job than sell you the bigger one.
Thinking about a deck?
Tell us what you want the space to do. Written quote, no obligation.