Serving the greater Tampa Bay area
Decks and Outdoor Living in Tampa
Most folks who call me about a deck have already pictured the cookouts. What they haven't pictured is the August afternoon when the rain comes through at 3 o'clock like clockwork, or the mosquitoes that show up the second the sun drops. A backyard space in Tampa has to earn its keep against all of that. Built right, it does. Built fast and cheap, it rots, sags, or sits empty half the year.
I'm Ricky Powers. I've been building in Tampa Bay for 30+ years, and I still walk every job myself. When you call, you talk to me.
Deck, patio, or screened lanai?
These are three different answers to the same question, and the right one depends on your yard and how you'll actually use it.
A wood or composite deck gives you a raised, finished surface, good over a slope or off the back of a raised house. A paver patio sits on grade, takes the heat well, and tends to last a long time with little fuss. A screened lanai is the one Tampa keeps asking for, because it's the only one of the three you can sit in at dusk without getting eaten alive. Plenty of folks end up wanting a mix: a paver patio with a screened section over part of it. We'll figure out which fits your house before anyone draws a thing.
Building for Tampa weather
The sun and the afternoon rain are hard on outdoor builds, and they decide your materials more than the catalog photos do.
Pressure-treated pine is the budget choice and it works, but it moves and needs upkeep in this climate. Composite costs more up front and shrugs off the sun and damp better over the years. For a roof or pergola, the question is shade first, because a slab that bakes all afternoon is a slab nobody uses. I'll lay out what each material runs and what it asks of you down the road, and let you make the call with real numbers instead of a sales pitch.
The part you can't see: footings and drainage
Here's where decks go wrong, and it's the part nobody photographs.
In Tampa the water table is high and the summer rain is heavy, so the footings and the drainage are what decide whether your deck is solid in ten years or spongy in three. Footings have to go deep enough and be sized right for the load. The grade has to carry water away from the structure and away from your house, not pool against it. A crew in a hurry pours shallow and slopes it wrong, and you don't find out until the posts heave or the wood sits in standing water. We don't cut that corner. We pull the right permits too, through the City of Tampa or unincorporated Hillsborough County depending on where you sit.
The yards we see around Tampa
Tampa backyards aren't all the same job. Over in Seminole Heights and Hyde Park you've got older lots, big trees, more shade, and homeowners who want a screened space to beat the bugs without losing the character of the place. Out in New Tampa and Westchase the subdivisions are newer, the lots more open, and the sun is the thing to plan around. One yard needs shade carved out. The other needs shade built in. The plan starts with which one you've got.
One crew, start to finish
You won't get handed off. The same crew that sets your footings is the one that lays the boards and the one that sweeps up the last day. We tell you what's happening at each step, and if your budget doesn't match your wish list, I'll say so before we start, not after. I'd rather lose the job than sell you a deck I know won't hold up in this climate.