Mr. Deck - Arbors

Your assurance of quality

Obviously, the structures that I design and fabricate are more involved than the things that custom deck-builders and landscape contractors do. These designer structures cannot be built from scratch on site from tools that are carried around in a pickup truck. But because they have been precut, predrilled and prepainted, they can be readily assembled and erected on site.

One of the most important aspects of a designer structure is
the absence of the site of fasteners. A designer structure should not exhibit brackets, bolts, nails or screws, contrary to the way local builders like to exhibit their handiwork. This takes attention to detail and ingenuity to accomplish.

Another important issue is the grade of materials used. These designer structures require the driest, straightest and clearest timbers possible. This grade of material is just not available at your local building-materials supplier. I have built solid relationships with key primary suppliers over two decades and I know what is obtainable and who can provide it to my specifications. These suppliers also take pride in the projects that I build with their materials.

Yet another issue is prepping the heavier timbers. I use only kiln-dried timbers selected for appearance grade. This includes the large 6x12, 24-feet long radial rafters that you see in many projects here.

Other contractors use green timbers with wet interiors. Within a few weeks of delivery they will begin to crack open along the grain, especially if the sun gets on them. Local builders will build with these wet timbers out in the open, wait until the painter is available and then apply the paint with a sprayer to the completed structure. Within a few weeks the beams and rafters will begin to crack open and allow moisture and termites to enter.

I immediately seal my timbers upon delivery with heavy coats of primer paint right after they are carved. Then I seal any cracks with a stiff but flexible polyurethane caulking because these cracks in the bigger timbers will expand in the summer and contract in the winter, year after year. Any hard filler in these cracks will eventually fall out. And any latex caulk will eventually wash out. Any other caulk is non-paintable. So polyurethane caulk is the only viable solution. Other contractors won't even touch this stuff because it takes a minimum of 3 days to cure before the timbers can be handled and that just puts a drag on their hustle to slap it all together.

Further, when one's dealing with hefty timbers, there can be many small to medium sized knots or at best a few big ones, in every single piece. If these timbers were left to dry naturally, those knots will crack open in a star pattern. Not only that, but exposed knots, even little ones, appear to grow over the years during which time the dimensions of the timbers shrink as they continue to dry. So I router-out all the knots to a given depth, shoot them with galvanized staples and then fill them with a sandable, paintable epoxy -- and that involves a lot of extra work.

Another preparatory step I take is to have the timbers resawn before painting. That is, the surface grain is fuzzied-up first so the the paint has something to grip onto. If damp smooth-surfaced timbers are just painted without doing this, the paint will crack and peel within the year. And I roll-on the paint, both primer and finish coats, to get a a deeply penetrating primary coat and a thick finish coat. Even the notches get painted.

Moreover, all the wood-to-wood contact points and notches are caulked with gooey polyurethane caulk before the pieces are fastened together and then troweled flush. This results in seamless joints and corners. Further, this polyurethane caulk takes 3 days to cure before it can be painted too -- and all of this takes a lot of extra time.

All the landscape and deck contractors that I've seen building arbors locally paint only their finished work and they do it by merely spray-painting. This leaves the contact points unpainted and applies only a watered-down thin coating of paint to the exposed surfaces. With Mr. Deck's arbors, your timbers come presealed and prepainted. Then they get touched up with finish coat after erection by again using only brushes and rollers.

And here's the final step: I leave no flat wooden surface that's exposed to the sky uncovered. All such pieces are capped with a separate 1/8-inch thick PVC plastic cap which overlaps the top corners.

A clearly visible example is shown here to the left.

Other builders just paint their plated bolts and brackets and within a year rust marks appear through the paint. I see this shortcut all over my area of operation. They just don't do any of the kind of prep and prevention work that I do as my standard fare.

And they don't build designer arbors either. Their stuff is all straight timbers piled atop one another. It doesn't take long before their work shows their limitations and shortcuts. By the time you discover their negligence, they've disappeared from your area with your money already spent -- and they aren't coming back, no matter what -- it's your problem now.

I'm not trying to compete with these local deck and landscape contractors working out of their pickup trucks building economy arbors. I don't do that economy work. I do designer arbors and want my creations to last and to even outlast me. Some of my arbors will probably get built just once in my lifetime and with this realization I do the best that I know how at the time, every time. Most of these arbors were done for the first and last time. Do you see any duplications anywhere in this site?

Because of all this preparatory work, the top grade materials that I use, the numerous architectural details and all the engineering that I incorporate into a designer structure, there is obviously a premium to be paid. And that premium is your insurance for a durable showpiece result.

Click the link below this section for a list of my architectural structure copyrights. These copyrights supersede any other kind of design copyright because they are only granted for structures that are actually built. That is, they go way beyond the conceptual blueprint stage. If you can find another designer with that kind of accomplishment, by all means go work with them.

If you contract with me to do your design, here's my advice: avoid laying the "poor is me" trip on me. I'll detect that attitude in short order; so if you have a limited budget, please spare me from the opportunity to design something that will never get built the way it was designed.

At 67 years old and 24 years in this business, I'm fed up with all the manipulative demeanors I've encountered over those years. At this stage in my life, I'm not going to tolerate anyone's condescending demeanor, vacuous promises or insincere behavior at any time during the project. And I'll not tolerate being treated like a second class citizen.

If you are honest, forthright and of good moral character, we'll get along. And that's the only kind of customer I will deal with.