Wow, that is one hell of a deck! Not to mention the house, which in its own right is very nice. Sounds like you have quite the undertaking, I hope it turns out to be the dream home your family envisions it to be.

Wow just wow


been looking at trex deck and others. hmmm gonna have to do further digging.


A HOUSE, dang looks like a huge pub.

Make sure you read the fine print! Here is a picture from 2010 when we bought the place. The left side was an obvious addition. It was nice, but has little to no insulation, and the truss system was so bad our engineer and architect believe it would have come down even in a small quake. That was our damn bedroom. If you ever buy a house, get a few inspections. Not just one. Look for one that was a legitimate contractor at some time. One of ours had never swung a hammer in his life. Now that we look back, his report was useless.

I will give a quick summary of the whole situation before I dive into the point of this post. In 2010 my wife and I bought 5 acres and a 2600 SF house on the west side of Olympia. It was a bank repo due to the death of the homeowner. We knew there were a few problems with an addition, but had no idea the pandora's box we would be getting into. We lived in it for a few years all the while planning a remodel. We decided to start it once I got out of the Air Force so I could do a majority of the work, plus we were starting to get a pretty bad mouse issue. In May of last year I started to gut the 1000 SF addition knowing it was going to need new trusses. The previous owner did the addition himself with no plans, permits, engineering or clue what the fuck he was doing. All this was done in 2006. After a few professional assessments, we decided to tear down the addition and start over. It was that bad. That turned into new trusses for the entire house, since the originals were cut and modified. Oh, and throw in new drywall, electrical and flooring. At least now it would look like a house, not a cobbled together mess. This 50k remodel will end up being 150K before we are done. Thank god we intend on dying in this place. So now to the point. The deck on this house is roughly 110 feet long and 12 feet wide, or about 1400 SF. Pretty big deck. We assumed for a few reasons, that it was Trex. There were some issues with it from the beginning like cracking and peeling. I talked to a few people and did some research online and found that their warranty is absolute shit. Only applies to the original purchaser, and if you ever file a claim, even on 1 piece, you can never file another. So we wrote the deck off, deciding to replace it with Ipe, after we recovered from the remodel in a few years. Some of it got damaged worse during the demolition, so I decided to shorten a section by 6 feet to use the boards to repair the damage. Trex does not make the color anymore, so new stuff would not match. Yesterday I cut up that 12x6 section to salvage the boards and noticed a tag on the end of the board, It was messed up and barely readable. I could make out a partial barcode, the location it was made,(Meridian, ID) and the letters LP. Damn, this shit ain't Trex. I go to the computer and type "LP composite decking" and the first few results were about a recall on material sold in the Northwest between 2005 and 2007. Now I have learned not to get my hopes up, cause if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is. One of the links has a phone number directly to Louisiana Pacific. Nice guy answers the phone and this is how the conversation goes.


LP: Claims hotline, how may I help you?
Me: I imagine this is a shot in the dark, but what is the deal with the recall on your composite decking?
LP: It has been upgraded from a recall to a class action lawsuit. If you have it on your house we will pay a contractor to replace it at no cost to you.
Me: I am not the original owner, does that matter?
LP: No, fill out the claims forms with as much evidence as you have, like pictures and we send a third party inspector out.
Me: Please tell me you are not joking.
LP: No sir, if any of the deck is damaged, like cracking or peeling, we will replace the entire deck. I will send the packet to you.

At this point I am kinda speechless, I feel like I just won the lottery. I call my contractor and he tells me a deck like that runs about 30K. Probably 20K to replace the surface due to demo and dump fees.

We finally got a break in this whole mess of a house. If you have seen Money Pit, you might understand.

Moral is, if something does not seem right, there is a chance its not, and it may not be your problem. Do your research, it pays off every once in a while.

That's one hell of a wrap around deck