A 30m² Pakenham deck is 5 to 8 working days on site, spread over 2 to 3 weeks
The crew time is short. The calendar time is longer because concrete footings need 5 to 7 days to cure before anything is built on them, and screw piles are the way to skip that wait. Loud days are demolition, footings and the two or three days of drop saw work. You need to clear about 2m around the work area, move cars off the driveway by 7am and leave the side gate unlocked. Everything else is on us.
Stage by stage: what happens and what you need to do
Timings are for a 30m² ground-level merbau deck replacing an old one, on a Pakenham or Officer block with normal side access. Bigger, higher and hills jobs stretch the same sequence.
| Stage | How long | What happens | What you need to do |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Set out and services check | 2 to 3 hours | Levels taken, footprint pegged, footing positions marked, underground services located, ledger height set off the house. | Point out the septic or water tank lines, irrigation, low-voltage garden lighting and where the gas and internet come in. |
| 2. Demolition of the old deck | Half a day to 1.5 days | Boards lifted, frame cut out, posts dug out, skip loaded. Loudest and dustiest stage. | Keep pets and kids inside. Nothing valuable within 2m. Expect the yard to look worse before it looks better. |
| 3. Footings | 1 to 2 days on site, then 5 to 7 days curing for concrete | Auger drills 300mm to 400mm holes to 1.2m, posts set, concrete poured. Screw piles instead take a day and need no cure. | Keep everyone away from open holes overnight if a pour is delayed. Driveway access needed for the concrete or pile rig. |
| 4. Bearers, ledger and joists | 1 to 2 days | Ledger bolted and flashed to the house, bearers set, joists at 450mm centres, frame squared and levelled. | Nothing, other than access. This is the quietest stage and the one that decides how the deck feels in ten years. |
| 5. Boards down | 1.5 to 3 days | Boards pre-oiled on all four faces, laid, spaced, fixed with 316 stainless, ends cut flush. Constant drop saw noise. | Schedule video calls early or late. Cars stay off the driveway while the saw station is set up. |
| 6. Stairs and balustrade | Half a day to 2 days | Treads and risers built, barrier fixed where the deck is over 1m above the surface below. | Confirm the stair position before it is built. Moving it after is a rebuild, not an adjustment. |
| 7. Oil and finish | 1 day, plus 24 hours between coats | Deck cleaned, first and second coats applied. Needs dry boards and a mild forecast. | Keep pets and kids off for 24 hours per coat. Furniture back after 48 hours. |
| 8. Clean up and handover | Half a day | Magnet sweep for screws, offcuts removed, site swept, permit inspection signed off if one applies, warranty paperwork handed over. | Walk the deck with us before we leave and raise anything you are not happy with then. |
Add 2 to 4 days for an elevated deck with a balustrade and 3 to 8 for a pergola over the top. Call (03) 9022 6418 with your dates.
What actually stalls a deck build
Three things cause almost every delay, and none of them is the carpentry. The first is the concrete cure. Pad footings need 5 to 7 days before the frame is loaded, and no amount of goodwill shortens that. If your dates are tight, screw piles cost more up front but let framing start the next day and often pay for themselves in a compressed program. The second is weather. Footings cannot be poured into a hole full of water and oil cannot go onto damp boards, and in Pakenham clay a wet week turns the side yard into a mud track. We build a 1 to 3 day weather allowance into winter programs rather than adding it to the price. The third is permits and inspections, where they apply. A building permit for a deck over 20m² or over 800mm high adds 3 to 6 weeks before anyone turns up, and the mandatory inspection points during the build have to be booked around the surveyor, not around us. The Victorian permit page sets out which decks need one.
A fourth, less common one: what we find under the old deck. Rotten ledger bolts, a termite trail in the frame or a footing that was never a footing all turn up after demolition. We photograph it, price the variation before touching it, and you decide. If your deck already feels soft, the spongy deck boards guide will tell you what we are likely to find.
Access, parking, power, noise and the rest of real life
Access. We need roughly 900mm of clear side access for a wheelbarrow and materials, and closer to 1.2m if an auger or mini excavator has to get through. Below 900mm, materials go over the fence or through the house, which adds around half a day and $400 to $900 in labour. Tell us at quote stage and it is a non-event. Tell us on the morning and it is a problem.
Parking. A ute with a trailer and usually a second vehicle. In the newer Cardinia Lakes, Officer and Pakenham East estates the streets are narrow with cars on both sides, so having the driveway clear from 6:45am makes a real difference. We will not block your neighbours in.
Power and water. One standard 10 amp external power point and a garden tap. The draw is small and the cost to you over a week is a few dollars. No external outlet means a lead through a window or a generator, and a generator is noisier for everyone, so an outlet is better.
Noise, dust and smell. We work Monday to Friday 7am to 6pm and some Saturday mornings, inside the hours Victorian councils and the EPA expect for residential construction. The auger and the drop saw are the loud ones. Dust comes from demolition and any concrete cutting, and we damp it down and keep it away from open windows. Smell comes from decking oil for 24 to 48 hours, and it is much milder with a water-based oil, which is what we use by default unless you ask otherwise.
Pets, kids and working from home. The genuine hazards are open footing holes 300mm to 400mm across and 1.2m deep, the nail gun and the saw station. Dogs should be inside or elsewhere on demolition and footing days, and the side gate will be opening all day so an escape artist needs to be secured. For anyone on video calls, the noisy blocks are stage 2, stage 3 and stage 5: send us your meeting times and we will move the saw or pause it.
Want the build to land in a specific week, before a birthday, a party or a sale campaign? Tell us the date and we will tell you honestly whether it is achievable.
☎ Call (03) 9022 6418Prepare for the crew: print this and tick it off
Run through this the weekend before the build starts. It takes about an hour and it removes most of the things that cost a morning on day one. Your ticks are saved in this browser.
Access and parking
Move these before day one
Services and safety
While we are on site
Do not sign off until these are true
What a clean site looks like, and where the waste goes
At the end of every day the saw station is packed down, offcuts are in the skip or the trailer and nothing sharp is left on grass a child or a dog can reach. At the end of the job the yard should look better than the day we arrived apart from the traffic wear on the lawn, which recovers in a few weeks. The magnet sweep matters more than it sounds: a dropped decking screw in a lawn finds a mower blade or a bare foot eventually.
Waste is separated. Old CCA treated pine goes to landfill because it must never be burnt, mulched or used in a garden bed, and that rule matters more up in Cockatoo and Emerald where people burn off. Old hardwood is frequently reusable and we will stack it for you if you want it for garden beds or a fire pit, otherwise it goes to a timber recycler. Concrete from old footings goes to a crushing yard, steel goes to scrap and packaging is recycled. A 3 cubic metre skip covers a typical 30m² demolition and runs $350 to $500, which is inside our quotes unless the quote says otherwise.
One honest note: a deck build is a genuinely disruptive week and a bit. If you are hosting something important, do not book the build for the fortnight before it. And if all you actually need is the deck cleaned and re-oiled, that is 1 to 2 days rather than 3 weeks, and the restoration cost guide is the page you want instead of this one. If you are still choosing materials, the board specification guide covers what each one is like to live with, and if you are pricing it, start at the pricing page or the budget options.
Get a build program with real dates for your job
Send your suburb and the week you want it finished and we reply within 1 business day with a realistic program.