Choosing a decking contractor in Melbourne

Melbourne is full of people who can cut a nice mitre. It has fewer people who will argue with you about fall, BAL and the ledger flashing. Hire the argument. The mitre is easier.

A deck is a small building. Treat the hiring like one.

Start with a specification, not a Pinterest folder

Write the size, the height, the species or composite system, the fastener, whether there is a roof, a stair, a screen, a tree, a room below. Attach a sketch. If you do not know, say so and ask the contractor to allow for a surveyor. A quote against a mood is not a quote.

Read our hubs first so you can hear nonsense. Permits, structure, cost bands — these are the conversation.

Questions that change the room

Who applies for the building permit? What joist centres, what hazard class, what stainless grade? How will the deck meet the house? What happens if the clay footing story changes on day two? Who is the waterproofer if there is a room below? Have they built in a BAL area, on a slope, on an owners-corporation balcony?

Ask to see a finished deck from more than one year ago. New timber is easy. Year-four timber is the test.

Insurance: public liability, and the relevant building warranty insurance if the job requires it. Registration: check the Victorian register rather than a logo on a van.

Reading the quote

Exclusions are the plot. Demolition, skips, oil, screens, engineering, making good the garden — if they are missing, they are your cost. Provisional sums should be explained.

A very low number on hardwood usually means H3 in the ground, no stainless, or no rail on a raised edge. A very high number may include a pergola you asked for in a subordinate clause.

Payment: a deposit, progress, a retention until the fall is proven in rain. Be wary of cash-only full payments before timber is on site.

During the job

Agree access, hours, and where the radio lives. Agree that hidden work — footings, membrane — is photographed. Agree that you will not redesign the stair on Wednesday without a variation.

If the contractor sneers at permits, waterproofing, or “council rubbish”, they are telling you who will own the file when you sell.

A good decking contractor in Melbourne is slightly boring. They talk about dryness and paper. Hire that. The poetry can be the timber.

Local knowledge is a technical skill

A carpenter who has only built in dry, new estates may not have met a Fitzroy terrace with no side access, a Doncaster clay pad, or a Peninsula salt wind. Ask where the last five decks were. Look them up. A good local will talk about tannin on cream render, about H4 in the ground, about the particular surveyor who wants a section through the stair.

Be wary of the national franchise script that promises “we do all timber” and cannot name a joist centre. Be equally wary of the cash job that will start tomorrow and has no ABN. Speed is not a specification.

After you say yes

Write the inclusions again in an email so both of you have the same story. Confirm the species on the docket when the timber arrives — “hardwood” is not spotted gum. Confirm 316 if you specified 316. Walk the fall with a hose if you can before the final payment.

If the relationship sours, the paper you wrote on day one is the thing that saves you. If the relationship is good, that paper is just a shared memory of a dry, lawful deck.

Melbourne is small. The people who build good decks are booked because they are slightly stubborn about water. Pay for the stubbornness.

Red flags that keep showing up

A quote with no drawing. A start date that depends on a deposit today and a truck that is “already loaded”. A refusal to name the building surveyor. A timber species that changes between the email and the docket. A request to pay the waterproofer in cash while the carpenter “sorts the rest”. Any of these is enough to walk.

Good trades are busy. Waiting six weeks for a person who will argue about fall is better than starting Monday with a person who will argue about why the door now swells.

Ask for a simple programme: demolition, footings, frame, inspection if required, boards, rail, clean. If they cannot sequence it on paper, they will sequence it as a surprise.

What a first site visit should feel like

A serious carpenter will measure the fall, look under the old deck if there is one, tap the wall where the ledger might go, and ask about the clothesline, the dog, the party and the overlay. They will not price from the footpath. They will not promise a price before they have seen the clay.

If they arrive without a tape and leave without a photo of the junction at the house, they are selling optimism. Pay for pessimism. Pessimism is how footings get deep enough.

Take notes. The phrases “we’ll see on the day”, “council never checks”, and “membranes are a rort” are all useful, because they tell you to keep looking.

When you do find the right person, treat them as a professional: clear brief, prompt decisions, payment on the agreed milestones. Melbourne’s good deck builders stay good because clients do not move the stair every Thursday.

A deposit should be modest and tied to a start, not to a promise. If the timber is not yet ordered, you are funding someone else's cash flow. Victorian consumer law has something to say about large deposits on domestic building work; use it as a backbone, not as a threat. A contractor who is calm about paper is usually calm about water, which is the quality you are actually buying.