Permit rules that change at every county line, maintenance intervals built around Maryland's actual climate, and honest guidance on when a deck is worth saving.
Most deck advice online is written for nowhere in particular. It quotes a 30-inch permit rule that Baltimore County does not use, a staining interval that ignores 45 inches of rain a year, and a repair-or-replace answer written by companies that only build decks.
These posts are written for this metro specifically. The counties around Baltimore set different permit triggers; Maryland's humidity and freezing swings shorten every finish interval printed on the tin; and the decks coming due now were mostly built in the 1980s and 1990s, to rules that have since changed. Everything here is the same answer we give on the phone — including the times that answer is "replace it."
The most expensive assumption homeowners make is that the rules are the same across the county line. They are not, and the differences are large enough to change what a project costs.
The county's trigger is 16 inches above grade or 120 square feet — far stricter than the 30-inch figure repeated on national sites, with no exemption for historic districts, floodplains or the Critical Area. Covers the three required inspections and the county's footing, lumber and hardware specs.
Read the guide →Rowhome rooftop decks answer to their own chapter of the city code: a two-foot height limit above the roof plane, eight-foot setbacks, written notice to party-wall neighbours and a Maryland architect's or engineer's seal — plus what CHAP review adds in Fells Point and Federal Hill.
Read the guide →Howard County exempts only decks under 25 square feet and has moved to the 2024 IRC, so a Columbia deck is measured against a different code book than a Timonium one. Columbia adds a second layer: village covenants and an architectural committee application before work begins.
Read the guide →Finish intervals on a can assume average conditions. Maryland is not average — roughly 45 inches of rain a year, a humidity peak from August through October, and a winter that crosses freezing again and again.
Real re-coat intervals by finish type, from 12–18 months for a water-repellent sealer to 3–7 years for solid-color stain on vertical faces. Explains why the walking surface always comes due first, how leaf debris feeds mildew, and the spring water-bead test that settles the question in two minutes.
Read the guide →Two windows work in a Maryland year — spring and early fall — and both are short. Why mid-summer heat flashes the finish off before it penetrates, what the August-to-October humidity peak does to drying time, and how 30 thunderstorm days wreck a schedule.
Read the guide →A decision framework built on framing condition rather than how the boards look, with the national cost ranges published by Fixr and Bob Vila laid out plainly. Includes the three conditions that genuinely justify replacement — and why a repair call so often comes back as a replacement quote.
Read the guide →Deck failures happen at a short, predictable list of points. Knowing which to check turns a vague worry into a specific, fixable scope of work.
A walk-through of every point a deck gets judged on — ledger and flashing, joists, beams, post bases, hardware corrosion, guard height and baluster spacing, stair rise and run, handrail grip. Written so you can run it yourself before calling anyone.
Read the checklist →The ledger is the most failure-prone connection on a deck, and decks from the 1980s were routinely nailed rather than bolted, left unflashed, and attached in ways the code now prohibits outright — including to brick veneer. Explains what current requirements demand and what a retrofit involves.
Read the guide →A deck gets judged from underneath. We'll inspect it, photograph what we find and give you a written estimate — plus a straight repair-or-replace answer.
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