Rotten timber under the deck: price it before you fix it

Hidden damage is the variation nobody argues you should do — and everybody argues about paying for

Rot, termite damage, corroded fixings, a bearer that's been wet for a decade — none of it was visible when you quoted, so none of it is in the quote. The customer will almost always agree the work has to happen. The dispute, if it comes, is about the number, and it comes because the number arrived for the first time on the final invoice.

The fix isn't complicated: photograph the damage while it's exposed, put a price on the extra work, and get the customer's yes in writing before the new timber covers the evidence. The hard part is doing all that at 9:40am with a half-demolished deck and a crew waiting. That's the gap TradieCue closes.

The five-minute version, standing on the frame

Take your photos of the rot while it's still exposed — wide shot for context, close-ups of each failed member. Then say what you found:

The variation lands on the Harper Street job next to the original quote, and your photos sit on the same job as evidence. The number is yours — Prices come from the user and stay editable. Timmy structures the work and wording; it does not invent amounts. The wording does the legal-commonsense work for you: “discovered on removal of existing decking” is the phrase that marks this as hidden damage, outside the original scope.

Customer at work? Send it before you keep going

The customer being off-site is exactly why this needs to be written, not phoned. Review the draft, then share it with a short message: here's what we found, here are the photos, here's the cost to fix it properly, reply to approve and we'll keep moving. You can keep working on the quoted scope while you wait — demolition, set-out, anything that doesn't commit you to the extra. When the “yes, go ahead” comes back in writing, the new joists go in with the money already agreed.

When it genuinely can't wait: make safe now, price tonight

Sometimes the damage is a safety problem — a bearer that could drop the frame, wiring that has to be isolated — and waiting for a reply isn't an option. Do the make-safe work, but capture the discovery at the moment you find it: photos plus a voice note, even ten seconds. If you don't have a number yet because you need to check timber prices or think about access, say the scope anyway. When an important detail is missing (a price, a customer, a scope item), Timmy asks rather than making it up. Expect it to come back with questions like:

• “What's the price for the framing replacement?” — the draft holds the scope with the amount open until you give it.
• “Which job is this on?” — if you've got two decks running and didn't name one.
• “Does this push out the completion date?” — if you mentioned a delay without being specific.

Then price it from the couch that night and send the variation before you're back on site. A same-day variation, backed by the photos and the note you took while standing in front of it, beats a line item invented at invoice time in every conversation you'll ever have about it — including the awkward one covered in what to do when a customer disputes extra work.

Before you hit send

Nothing is sent automatically. Every quote, variation and follow-up is a draft the user reviews, edits and shares themselves. Thirty seconds of review earns its keep on hidden-damage variations. Check that:

• The cause reads as discovery, not choice — the customer didn't ask for this, the building did.
• The price covers the lot — timber, hardware, disposal of the rotten members, and the labour to do it. GST maths correct.
• It asks for a decision — an explicit “approve to proceed”, not just an FYI.

The manual alternative

Without a system, the sequence is familiar: photos of the rot go into the camera roll with 4,000 others, the customer gets a phone call from the ute (“found a bit of rot, we'll sort it”), the work happens, and the invoice carries a surprise line — “additional framing, $1,500” — that the customer never agreed to in writing. They push back, you discount, and the deck you fixed properly is the job you made less on. The disciplined version — stop, type up a variation on your phone, text it through — works fine; it just reliably loses to a crew standing around at $100-plus an hour. A spoken note is the discipline that survives the pressure.

The feature doing the work here is variation capture; the full method, including evidence and timing, is in how to document extra work. Carpenters and builders live in this scenario more than anyone — see TradieCue for carpenters and for builders.

Common questions