Decks

5 Signs Your Deck Needs Repair Before Summer (And What To Do About Each One)

May 2025 — Handled Home, Moon Township, PA

Summer in Pittsburgh means cookouts, evenings outside, and actually using your deck again after a long winter. But before you drag out the furniture and fire up the grill, it's worth taking 10 minutes to walk your deck and look for a few things that could turn a fun summer into an expensive — or dangerous — surprise.

Here are five signs your deck needs attention, what you can try yourself, and when it's time to call someone.

1. Soft or Spongy Boards When You Walk On Them

Step on each board as you walk the deck. If one gives a little too much, that's rot. Pittsburgh winters are tough on wood — freeze and thaw cycles break it down from the inside, and what looks fine on the surface can be structurally compromised underneath.

Try this first: Poke the suspicious board with a screwdriver. If it sinks in easily, the wood is rotted through and needs replacing. If it feels firm but just flexes a bit, it may just be a loose fastener — try driving a new screw into the nearest joist below.

Call us if: The screwdriver sinks in, multiple boards feel soft, or you're not sure where the rot ends.

2. Loose or Wobbly Railings

Give every railing section a firm shake. They shouldn't move. Loose railings are a fall risk, especially with kids or elderly family members using the deck.

Try this first: Check if the bolts connecting the post to the deck frame are just loose. A wrench tightening them up is a five-minute fix that solves the problem about half the time.

Call us if: The post itself is cracked, the wood around the bolt is soft or rotted, or tightening the hardware doesn't stop the wobble.

3. Visible Cracks or Splits in the Wood

Some surface cracking is completely normal — wood expands and contracts through the seasons. But deep splits running along the length of a board are a sign it's breaking down. Water gets into those cracks, freezes in winter, and makes them worse every year.

Try this first: For small surface cracks, clean the area and fill with an exterior wood filler or caulk rated for outdoor use. Let it dry fully and seal over it. This works well on cosmetic cracks that haven't gone all the way through the board.

Call us if: The crack runs the full length of the board, goes all the way through, or the wood around it feels soft.

4. Rust Stains Around Screws and Nails

Dark streaks running down from fasteners mean the hardware is corroding. This looks cosmetic but it's actually structural — corroded fasteners lose their grip over time, especially where your deck connects to your house.

Try this first: If the staining is minor and the fastener still feels tight, clean the area with a deck cleaner and apply a wood sealer over it to slow further moisture exposure. Not a permanent fix, but it buys you time.

Call us if: Fasteners are visibly rusting through, feel loose, or you see rust staining on the ledger board — the board that connects your deck to your house. That's the most important structural connection on the whole deck.

5. The Deck Feels Uneven or Slopes More Than It Used To

If your deck tilts, bounces in certain spots, or sections sit lower than they used to, the posts or footings underneath may have shifted. Pittsburgh's freeze-thaw cycles are hard on anything in the ground.

Try this first: Look under the deck at the posts. If a post has visibly shifted, cracked, or if the concrete footing underneath it has heaved up or sunk, note which one and how bad it looks. Sometimes a single post just needs to be re-shimmed or re-secured.

Call us if: Multiple posts look affected, the deck has shifted away from the house, or you're not comfortable getting under there to look. Foundation movement gets worse if ignored and is worth having eyes on sooner rather than later.

The Bottom Line

A lot of deck issues are simple fixes if you catch them early. The ones to take seriously are soft wood, rust on structural fasteners, and anything that feels like the whole deck has shifted. Those don't get better on their own.

If you're in Moon Township, Coraopolis, Sewickley, Robinson, or anywhere in the Pittsburgh area and want a second set of eyes on it, we're happy to come take a look. Free estimates, no pressure. Call or text us at 412-353-5341 or visit handledhome.net.