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Covered patios, porches, decks, and outdoor kitchens, built by a general contractor who treats the footings and the drainage as the actual job. Danny Bird has been building since 2001.
Why Utah is hard on outdoor work
A patio in a mild climate can be a slab and a nice afternoon. Along the Wasatch Front the ground freezes and thaws over and over from late fall into spring, and every one of those cycles pushes on whatever you built.
Water finds its way into concrete, freezes, expands, and takes the surface with it. Footings that stop above the frost line get heaved and dropped until posts go out of plumb and a deck starts to rack. Grade that slopes back toward the house sends snowmelt into a basement wall you paid somebody else to finish.
None of that shows up the first summer. It shows up in year three. Which is why the parts of this job worth paying for are the parts you will never see in a photo.
What actually holds up
Ask any bidder to tell you how they are handling all four. The vague answer is the answer.
Every post, column, and pier has to bear below the depth the ground freezes to. Utah County cities generally set that around thirty inches and your city's building department sets the exact number. A footing poured shallow will heave, and once a structure has been lifted and dropped a few winters it does not go back.
Air-entrained mix, proper curing, and control joints cut where you want the cracks instead of where the slab picks. Skip the deicing salt the first winter or two, because salt on young concrete is the fastest way to pit and flake a brand new patio.
The ground should fall away from the house, roughly six inches over the first ten feet, and a patio should slope away too rather than sit dead flat against the siding. Downspouts get carried past the new hardscape. Do this wrong and the nicest patio in the neighborhood quietly waters your foundation.
A ledger board gets through-bolted or lagged into real framing and flashed so water runs out instead of in. It never gets nailed on, never hangs off brick veneer, and never lands on a cantilever. Deck failures are almost always attachment failures, not decking failures.
Scope
Framed, roofed, and tied into the existing roof line with real flashing. A cover is a structure carrying snow, so it gets engineered like one.
Ground level, elevated, and rooftop. Footings, framing, guardrails, and stairs, with the attachment detail done right at the house.
Gas run and sized from the meter, protected circuits, and any water line set up so it can be drained before the first hard freeze.
Patios, walks, steps, retaining walls, and driveways. Base preparation and joint layout decide how these look in five years.
Pools, turf, and sport surfaces coordinated with the grading, the utilities, and the hardscape so the yard gets built once instead of three times.
Siding, roofing, windows, and entries. If the outside of the house is tired, this is the work that changes it. See remodels and additions.
Recent work
The decision most people get stuck on
A roof roughly doubles how many months of the year the space gets used. It also changes the project from a slab into a structure. Here is the honest trade.
Snow load. The moment there is a roof, the beams, posts, and footings are sized to carry whatever your city's snow load number is, and that number climbs fast as you move up onto the benches. A cover is almost always a permitted structure, and it has to tie into the existing roof with flashing that will not leak in a February thaw.
Shade in July, a dry patio in a spring storm, and furniture that is not bleached by fall. At this elevation the sun is brutal on cushions, finishes, and composite decking. Cover is the cheapest UV protection there is.
A pergola, a partial cover over the cooking and seating zone only, or a slab poured now with the footings and posts already set for a cover you add later. That last one costs very little today and saves tearing up new concrete in two years.
Utilities, grading, and drainage go first, then hardscape, then structure, then planting. Homeowners who hire this out piece by piece usually end up cutting into new concrete to run a gas line somebody should have sleeved on day one.
Questions
Related
If the inside is getting rebuilt too, this is the cheapest moment to fix the outside. See a full before and after set.
Bedrooms, baths, theaters, and gyms, with the egress and moisture work handled properly.
Outdoor space designed with the house instead of added to it later, which is always the cheaper way to get it.
Design and construction under one contract, one budget, and one point of accountability.
Where we work
A deck, a covered patio, an outdoor kitchen, or the whole yard at once. The first conversation is free and it is with Danny.
Or call or text (801) 735-7186