Advice on Making Older Deck Safe
Seeking advice:
Looking for advice on making an older deck safe enough to get another ~5 years out of it.
We’ve had several deck companies come out, and every one of them has said the deck is so far out of current code that it should be torn down and rebuilt. Under normal circumstances, we’d probably go that route.
The challenge is that we’re facing several other urgent home repairs this year and simply don’t have the budget for a full deck replacement right now.
Our goal is to figure out what repairs are necessary to make this deck safe and structurally sound enough to buy us a few more years while we save for a replacement. We’re reasonably handy homeowners and have done some deck repairs before. A couple years ago we replaced rotted boards, installed new balusters, and rebuilt the privacy wall.
We’re just hoping for guidance on what absolutely needs attention for safety reasons versus what is mainly a code issue that doesn’t necessarily mean immediate failure.
Thanks in advance for any advice. (Last pic was when we freshly repainted it several years ago. Paint has worn considerably now and balusters have been installed in the opening).