What questions should I ask a deck rebuilding contractor in Greenwood?

The ten questions, in the order to ask them

A contractor who rebuilds decks for a living answers every one of these without checking notes. The order matters, because the first three are where the weak bids get vague and you can stop wasting your evening.

1. Who pulls the Greenwood building permit, you or me, and is the fee in the quote? A rebuild, a ledger repair or new footings needs one. A contractor who suggests skipping it is asking you to carry the risk at resale.
2. How deep are the footings going? The answer in Greenwood is at least 30 inches below grade, sized to the load. Anything shallower lifts a little every winter.
3. How are you attaching and flashing the ledger? You want through-bolts or structural screws into the band joist, with flashing over the top. Nails and no flashing is how decks fall off houses.
4. What lumber grade and what hardware? Ground-contact treated posts, joist hangers and connectors rated for treated lumber, hot-dipped galvanized or stainless fasteners.
5. Who is on my property, your crew or a sub? Either can be fine. Not knowing is not.
6. Can your agent send a current certificate of general liability and workers' comp? Sent by the agent, not a photo of a card.
7. What is not in this quote? Demolition and haul-off, footing removal, the permit fee, grading, stair lighting and railing upgrades are the common surprises.
8. How do changes get priced if we find rot or a bad footing once the boards come off? You want a written unit price, not "we'll work it out."
9. What does the workmanship warranty cover, in writing, and for how long? Then ask what voids it.
10. Can I drive past two decks you built in Johnson County more than two winters ago? Fresh photos prove nothing. A deck that is still level after a couple of freeze and thaw cycles proves the footings.

What answers should I expect, and which ones are red flags?

The good answers are specific numbers and names; the bad ones are reassurance. Here is the side by side for the questions where it matters most.

Which of these does the Greenwood inspector actually check?

Footing depth, ledger attachment, guardrail height and spacing, and the final walk. Greenwood publishes its own Prescriptive Deck Construction Guide, and it is worth ten minutes before you take bids. It states that a ledger-attached deck needs footings to frost depth, a minimum of 30 inches below grade in Greenwood; that a ledger cannot be anchored through masonry veneer or to a cantilevered floor; that any deck more than 30 inches off the ground needs a guardrail at least 36 inches high with openings under 4 inches; and that the deck cannot be used until it passes final inspection. The fastener tables it points to come from the 2020 Indiana Residential Code, which follows the American Wood Council deck provisions. A contractor who has built in Greenwood knows those four items by heart. One who has not will learn them on your job, at your expense.

Brick veneer homes in Center Grove and the newer Greenwood subdivisions are the common trap. The right answers are a steel lintel with the veneer removed at the ledger, or a freestanding frame with its own posts along the house. The wrong answer, lag bolts through the brick, passes nobody's inspection and holds nothing.

How do I compare three bids that all answered differently?

Put them against published ranges and against each other on scope, not on the bottom line. Around Greenwood a pressure-treated full rebuild runs $9,000 to $18,000 and a composite rebuild $18,000 to $30,000 on our cost guide, with a re-deck on a sound frame at $6,000 to $12,000. A bid well under those numbers usually dropped something from question seven. A bid well over them should be able to say which line is driving it, and it is often height, stairs or a composite railing system. The upfront pricing article walks through turning a vague bid into one you can line up against the others.

If the bids disagree about whether you need a rebuild at all, that is a frame question, not a price question. A free underside inspection settles it: dry joist tops, a sound ledger and footings that have not heaved mean a re-deck; soft joists or a rotted ledger mean the structure goes too, and the deck replacement page covers what that involves. Homeowners who want to trade in their deck boards and keep the frame should read how a Trex re-deck handles a rotten joist before comparing bids.

Ask us the same ten

We would rather lose a job to a homeowner asking hard questions than win one from somebody who did not. Every answer above is the answer you will get on the phone, and the one we will not give is a price for your specific deck before someone has been under it. Every frame is different. Send the form or call, and the quote comes back in writing with the line items this article told you to look for.