Our customers had only lived in their home for less than a year and decided that they could do without the old 2 story deck on the back of the house. It as rotting through in several places. It was decided that it was no longer safe and needed to come down. We specialize in deck demolition and we were able to deconstruct this deck safely in 2 hours.
We started by taking the top off first. We cut it into sections and then cut the posts off near the top and then lowered them one section at a time. Then we moved on to the top railings. We cut them into sections and then cut the posts off at the floor level and lowered these sections down to the guys to haul off to the truck while we continued to demo the deck to save time and it makes less to clean up at the end.
Once we had all of the railings down we could start working on taking the floor boards off of the second story floor. They were screwed in pretty good so it took two of us with a pry bar and a long wooden board to pry them off. Once we got our rhythm it went pretty quickly.
Once we had all of the boards out we just cut the long boards off on the end farthest away from the house and that allowed us to pull them down and tap them right out of the metal joists that were holding them up. Once they were down we cut the front beam off and carried it off and then bent the outside boards down and tapped them out of their joists. ONce they we removed the corner posts and we had the structure of the second story deck down.
At that point, we replaced the two holes at the corners left by the missing posts with wood blocks cut from the existing boards we took down so the paint matched perfectly. When we got ready to remove the last couple of boards against the house we found a lot of water damage where the deck was attached to it. Whoever built the deck did not add any flashing and water drained down the back of the trim for years. 
We spoke with the homeowner and decided to cover the whole section with plastic and screwed in a board on top to keep it water tight until they could get it repaired. We then cleaned up any debris left over on site and went through the work site with a strong magnet to pick up any nails or screws that came off the deck while removing it. After we were all cleaned up we swept off the deck and left it looking like it was built that way,
Note: We screwed the door shut from the inside with 3 inch screws to make sure no one goes strolling out if they forget it is gone.
Austin Demolition Services
712 Congress Ave #927
Austin, TX 78701
(512) 298-4167
https://www.austindemolitionservice.com
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