I just bought a new house, and the previous owners installed a railing but skipped adding balusters for some reason. They even offered a tiny credit of $750 to get them installed, but instead, I received a quote from a decking company for almost $10,000! That seems way too high for just adding some safety features. I'm not very handy, and neither is my husband, so I'm wondering if this quote is reasonable. Should I consider hiring a handyman or does it make sense to try to do it ourselves? I'm attaching some photos of the deck to give you a better idea.
3 Answers
Yeah, 10k seems like a huge overestimation to me. If it were my project, I'd watch some instructional videos and get a friend over to help out. You could keep it simple with some standard lumber and get it done without spending too much. Honestly, it's pretty straightforward: just buy a few materials and follow the basic steps. The only main concern is making sure the gaps between balusters don't exceed four inches to keep it safe.
I think you're overthinking this! Making sure that the deck is safe doesn't mean you need to bring it up to code; you just need to secure it. A handyman can definitely help with adding those balusters for around $200 in material costs and a few hours of work. You could also explore different designs, like metal cables, if you want something stylish. But really, DIYing this is totally doable; it's just a matter of how confident you feel!
Wow, $10k sounds outrageous! This is something you and your husband could probably tackle yourselves in just a day or two. Just look up the local building codes for baluster spacing, gather materials from a hardware store, and follow along with a few YouTube tutorials. If you decide doing it yourself seems too daunting, hiring a handyman should be way cheaper. Maybe around $1,500 to $2,500, tops. It's really not as complicated as it sounds!