Deck Questions, Answered

Shawnee requires a building permit for any deck more than 30 inches above the adjoining ground at any point, and for any solid roof over a deck. The Johnson County deck guideline the city works from is broader and calls for a permit before you construct, alter, or replace a deck at all. Treat a permit as the default and let us confirm it for your specific job.

The 2018 International Residential Code, with local amendments. Plans submitted after 1 July 2019 have to reflect it. The city also directs applicants to the Johnson County Building Officials guideline for residential decks, written to that same edition, which is the document most deck details here actually come from.

A signed deck permit application, lodged at City Hall or through the city's online portal, a scaled plot plan showing every structure and the distances to your property lines, and construction plans showing footing size and location, post size, beams, joist direction and spacing, and the lumber type. Decks attached at a cantilever have to be self-supporting there.

The Building Codes Division sits in the lower level west wing of City Hall at 11110 Johnson Drive, Shawnee, KS 66203. It is reachable on 913-742-6010 or at codes@cityofshawnee.org. Utility locates go through Kansas One Call on 811 before any digging.

A deck may encroach 6 feet into the required rear yard, and otherwise has to meet your lot's zoning setbacks. Typical R-1 single-family zoning runs 30 feet front, a side yard of 20 percent of lot width with a 7-foot minimum, and 30 to 40 feet rear. Corner lots are treated as having two front yards.

The two that decide everything are footings before the pour and framing before decking covers it. The exact sequence gets confirmed when the permit is issued. Those two gates exist because once concrete is in the ground and boards are over the frame, no one can see what was actually done.

Most pressure-treated decks around here land between $25 and $56 per square foot installed. What moves a job inside that range is height above grade, the number of stair flights, and the railing system, far more than the deck's footprint. Composite sits higher again. Every quote we give is in writing before anything is ordered.

Because they are often not quoting the same deck. Shape and height, the decking material tier, the railing system, the number of stair flights, the footings your soil and frost depth demand, whether equipment can even reach the site, demolition and disposal of the old deck, and permit and plan-review work all move the number. Ask any two quotes to itemize and the gap usually explains itself.

Winter, for a spring build. The practical build season here runs roughly March through November, so quoting, design, and permitting in the cold months is what gets you a deck in the spring rather than in the autumn.

Most of the elapsed time is plan review and weather rather than carpentry. Plan review takes as long as it takes, footings have to be inspected before concrete, and framing has to be inspected before it is covered. We give you a realistic window rather than an optimistic one.

No. Someone comes out, measures, probes the structure if there is one, and tells you what they found, whether or not you go ahead.

Pressure-treated is the cheapest to install and the most expensive to maintain, since it needs re-cleaning and re-staining on a cycle. Capped composite and cellular PVC cost more upfront and eliminate that cycle entirely. The crossover is really a question of how long you plan to stay in the house, not which product is better.

Ask whether it has an ICC-ES evaluation report. Composite and plastic lumber get code recognition through ASTM D7032 testing, covering flexural strength, creep, UV, freeze-thaw, slip resistance, and fastener holding, and that report is what lets a building official approve the brand. It is a checkable quality signal that will not be on a competitor's brochure.

On a cycle rather than a schedule, and the deck tells you when. Water that beads on the boards means the finish is still working; water that soaks straight in means it is time. Around here the workable windows are the dry shoulder seasons, roughly April to June and September to October.

It is a self-adhesive butyl membrane run along the tops of joists, beams, and the ledger. It sheds water out of the joist-to-board interface and seals itself around every screw that goes through it, which is precisely where substructure rot starts. The framing is the expensive half of a deck to replace, and the tape protects it for a small fraction of the job. We put it on as standard.

It gets hauled. If the deck predates about 2004 the lumber is probably CCA-treated, and Kansas does not accept treated wood at construction and demolition landfills or allow it to be burned. It goes to the WM Johnson County Landfill on Holliday Drive, which happens to sit inside Shawnee.

Shawnee first, then Lenexa, Overland Park, Merriam, Mission, Olathe, Prairie Village, Roeland Park, Lake Quivira, and De Soto. We also go to Bonner Springs, Edwardsville, and the Kansas City, KS side. Permit requirements change at the city line, so we confirm which office your address answers to before drawing anything.

Yes, and it is written into Kansas law. For a contract signed away from the supplier's own place of business, which includes one signed at your kitchen table, you may cancel until midnight of the third business day. The paperwork comes with the cancellation notice and a detachable cancellation form attached, because that is what the statute requires.

Both, and repair is a large part of the work here. Plenty of the housing stock east of Nieman Road is on its second or third deck, and a good number of those were built before the current ledger and guard-post rules existed.

That is fine and often sensible. Re-decking a sound frame, replacing just the railing, or staining what you have are all real answers, and sometimes they are the right one. We price repair against replacement so you can see both numbers side by side.