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Bad Deck Tour

Whats Wrong With This Deck? | Bad Deck Tour

CEO Adam Rought identifies critical deck safety flaws to help homeowners recognize when replacement is necessary.

We're out here in West Michigan taking a look at one of our future customers' deck and I want to take you through some of the issues today and walk you around some of the areas you want to look for on your deck to know if you've got problems or not. So right away I'm met at the steps with a changing riser height. So the problem with this in the United States, our risers, the distance here needs to be the same on the entire staircase. Otherwise your brain will psychologically kind of trip up. So we really want to nail that detail replace this deck. Make sure every step is of equal riser height. As I come in here, I notice someone at some point has fallen through the deck. They've done a repair. We've got a significant amount of rot on this deck. Anytime you paint or solid stain a deck like this, it's really trapping in the moisture and it really starts to break down quickly. It's not a product that I would necessarily recommend if you have a wood deck you really should be stripping it down and staining and sealing properly. We've got failing rail, actually missing spindles entirely, a ton of dry rot on this rail. Coming over here I notice we've got a lot more rot here on this board and I get a small glimpse at the understructure and I can already tell that this deck is not built properly. You really cannot support a deck on top of concrete adequately because what happens in Michigan is the frosted will move this deck all the time and what you're left with is just really wavy and uneven surfaces. So we prefer get to a get below the frost line get a real foundation in there. Thinking there's going to be quite a bit of spring in this deck. Oh yeah I feel like I almost fell in a hole here. There's a huge amount of slope and likely what happens when you have slopes and valleys is water will start to puddle and cool and that'll degrade the deck even quicker. So this deck definitely has seen better days. We need to get this thing tore out, get a new one built by Green Shield with a lifetime warranty.

Description

Green Shield believes a deck is only as good as its foundation. During a recent inspection in West Michigan, Green Shield CEO Adam Rought identified critical hazards that compromise a home’s safety.

The Red Flags:

Inconsistent Stairs: Uneven riser heights disrupt a natural gait, creating a constant trip hazard.
The Paint Trap: Solid stains and paints trap moisture against the grain, accelerating wood rot from the inside out.
Structural Instability: Failing railings and missing spindles are symptoms of a deck built incorrectly from the start.

Our team knows that beauty is secondary to a hardworking backbone. When a deck lacks premier engineering, maintenance cannot fix the underlying danger. This walkthrough helps homeowners identify when a structure has reached its limit and requires a professional, reliably engineered replacement. Green Shield builds for the long haul because your family’s safety is a non-negotiable standard.

Transcript

We're out here in West Michigan taking a look at one of our future customers' deck and I want to take you through some of the issues today and walk you around some of the areas you want to look for on your deck to know if you've got problems or not. So right away I'm met at the steps with a changing riser height. So the problem with this in the United States, our risers, the distance here needs to be the same on the entire staircase. Otherwise your brain will psychologically kind of trip up. So we really want to nail that detail replace this deck. Make sure every step is of equal riser height. As I come in here, I notice someone at some point has fallen through the deck. They've done a repair. We've got a significant amount of rot on this deck. Anytime you paint or solid stain a deck like this, it's really trapping in the moisture and it really starts to break down quickly. It's not a product that I would necessarily recommend if you have a wood deck you really should be stripping it down and staining and sealing properly. We've got failing rail, actually missing spindles entirely, a ton of dry rot on this rail. Coming over here I notice we've got a lot more rot here on this board and I get a small glimpse at the understructure and I can already tell that this deck is not built properly.