Deck rebuilding with the prices published
Southside Deck Rebuilders is a deck rebuilding contractor serving Greenwood, Johnson County and the Indianapolis south side: repairs when boards and railings fail, re-decking when the frame is sound and full rebuilds when it is not. No pressure toward the big job, because every price sits on the public cost guide where you can check the math yourself.
Crews are taking new work now. Every booked job gets a written start date.
Rebuilding a deck in the Greenwood area costs $9,000 to $18,000 in pressure-treated wood and $18,000 to $30,000 in composite for typical sizes, while re-decking a structurally sound frame runs $6,000 to $12,000 and targeted repairs start at a few hundred dollars. Which category your deck belongs in comes down to the frame: the ledger attachment at the house, the joists, the posts and footings that must sit below the roughly 30 inch frost line central Indiana winters demand. Most decks built with the 1990s and 2000s housing stock around Greenwood are reaching the 15 to 20 year age where those parts retire, and a free twenty-minute inspection underneath the deck answers repair-or-rebuild definitively. Structural work here requires a permit, the paperwork rides inside the job and every price traces to a published table anyone can read before making a single call.
See your price range right now
Two questions, priced straight from the published cost guide. This is a real calculator running on this page. It asks for no contact details, sends nothing anywhere and the range updates as you answer.
The hidden decider on big jobs is the frame. If the joists, ledger and footings are sound, a re-deck saves thousands over a rebuild; if the frame is rotting from the ledger out, new boards on it are money buried. The free inspection settles which side your deck is on.
Is your deck repairable or done? Check these six things
You can learn most of what matters in ten minutes with a flashlight. Here is the same walk-through we do, in the order we do it:
- 1
Push the rail posts hard
A guardrail that deflects or rocks at its base has failed its one job. Post-base hardware usually fixes it for hundreds, not thousands.
- 2
Probe the ledger board
The board bolting the deck to the house is where decks separate and fall. Soft wood, rust streaks or missing flashing there moves the deck to urgent.
- 3
Look at the post bottoms
Posts resting in soil or standing water rot from below while the top looks fine. A lean anywhere means stay off and call.
- 4
Bounce test the middle
A slight liveliness is normal on long spans; visible flex or a trampoline feel means joists are undersized, overspanned or rotting.
- 5
Check the stairs and stringers
Stairs fail before the platforms they serve. Cracks at the stringer notches or treads that flex are this month's repair, not next year's.
- 6
Count the winters
Pressure-treated decks around here retire at 15 to 20 years. Past that age, any one of the symptoms above earns a professional look underneath.
Anything on that list failing earns the professional version, free, with a written result. The checklist logic follows the American Wood Council’s prescriptive deck construction guidance, published at awc.org, which is the document good deck builders quietly build from.
What Indiana weather does to a deck
Freeze-thaw does the structural damage. Central Indiana swings through dozens of freeze cycles a winter, and every one works water deeper into checks and connections while lifting any footing that sits above the frost line. Thirty years of cycles heave shallow footings visibly, which is why older south side decks so often stand out of level.
Humidity does the quiet damage. Wood that never fully dries between summer storms feeds rot at exactly the spots you cannot see: the ledger behind its flashing, the joist tops under the boards, the post bases at grade. Rot needs moisture, wood and time, and an unflashed connection supplies all three.
Sun finishes the surfaces. Southern exposures gray, check and splinter years ahead of shaded boards, which is why one side of a deck often looks a decade older than the other. Surface aging is cosmetic right up until the checks let water reach the fasteners, and then it is not.
Repair, re-deck or rebuild: three different sums of money
Repair money fixes failures on a structure that still has years: boards from $250, railing sections from $500, stairs from $800, structural work from $1,200. It is the right money whenever the frame passes inspection, and half the time it does.
Re-deck money, $6,000 to $12,000, buys new boards and railings on your existing sound frame. It is the sweet spot for the builder-grade decks all over Center Grove and Wanamaker, where crews framed adequately and decked cheaply. The re-deck and rebuild page covers how the decision gets made, what composite changes and how to choose between materials with both prices printed side by side.
Rebuild money resets everything: footings below frost depth, a bolted and flashed ledger, modern hardware at every connection. It is the honest answer for the 80s and 90s stock around Southport and for any deck whose frame fails the checklist above. Spending repair money on a finished frame is the one mistake this trade should never let you make.
Sagging, leaning or unsafe right now
Some deck problems do not wait for a convenient week: a deck that has started to lean, a ledger pulling off the house, a railing gone loose above a walkout drop, stairs separating before a graduation party. The urgent repairs page covers exactly how those calls run: an assessment visit within days at $300 to $800, credited to the repair, with stabilization first and the permanent fix quoted off the public table. A deck failure with people on it is the injury pattern this trade exists to prevent, and urgent calls jump our line accordingly.
Selling or buying a house with a deck? The inspection page covers the pre-listing and pre-purchase checks, $200 to $400 with a written report, that keep a tired deck from ambushing a closing.
From first look to final rail, in five steps
- 1
The underside inspection, free
Twenty minutes with a flashlight and a probe: ledger, joists, posts, footings, rails and stairs, with photos of what we find. You get the honest category, repair, re-deck or rebuild, before any pricing talk.
- 2
A written number off the public table
The quote names the scope, the materials and the price, tied line by line to the published cost guide. Material options priced side by side where a choice exists.
- 3
Permit filed, start date in writing
Structural work gets its permit before it starts, and every booked job gets a written start date. Paperwork rides inside the job, not on top of it.
- 4
The build, two to five days on site
Repairs usually finish in a day. Re-decks and rebuilds run two to five working days for typical sizes, footings and inspections included, with the site left clean each evening.
- 5
Walkthrough, records and the file
You walk the finished deck with the crew lead, push the rails yourself and get the file: permit, inspection sign-off and material records. The next owner of the house will want that folder.
Affordable where the frame allows, honest where it does not
The full table lives on the cost guide with every job type and every price mover explained. The short version:
| Replace damaged boards | $250 - $800 |
| Joist or structural repair | $1,200 - $4,000 |
| Re-deck a sound frame | $6,000 - $12,000 |
| Full rebuild, wood / composite | $9,000 - $18,000 / $18,000 - $30,000 |
Where we rebuild
Greenwood is home base, and the crews run Johnson County and the Indy south side daily. Each of the areas below has its own page with its own deck-stock notes:
Asked on almost every call
How much does it cost to rebuild a deck in Greenwood?
A full rebuild in pressure-treated wood runs $9,000 to $18,000 for typical sizes and $18,000 to $30,000 in composite, while a re-deck, new boards and railings on a sound existing frame, runs $6,000 to $12,000. Repairs start far lower: boards from $250, railing sections from $500. Every number sits on our published cost guide, and the inspection that sorts your deck into the right category is free.
How do I know if my deck needs repair or full replacement?
The frame decides. Gray, splintered or cupped boards over sound joists and footings mean repair or re-deck money. Rot at the ledger, posts soft at the base, footings that heave each winter or a deck that sways underfoot mean the structure itself is done. The twenty-minute underside inspection answers it definitively, and about half the decks we check still have sound frames.
My deck feels bouncy and one railing wobbles. Is it safe to use?
Treat it as suspect until someone looks underneath, especially if the deck stands well off the ground. Bounce means the structure is flexing beyond design, and a wobbly rail is a fall protection failure right now. Keep gatherings off it and call; an urgent assessment visit runs $300 to $800, credits toward the repair and usually happens within days.
Do I need a permit to rebuild a deck in Greenwood?
Structural deck work in Greenwood and Johnson County generally requires a permit, and rebuilds always do. We prepare and file the paperwork as part of every job, build to the inspection and hand you the record at the end. An unpermitted rebuild becomes a problem exactly when you sell the house, so we do not build that problem.
More on the full FAQ page.
Get a written number for your deck
Tell us where it is and what it is doing. Photos, especially from underneath, get the fastest answer, and every number comes off the public table.