How much will a deck and a pergola cost to have made please? Also general advice?

[TheSpokenNerd]

In my garden? Roughly? the deck would be about 12ft by 16ft and I'd like a pergola/shelter/roofed area over it....I have NO idea what it might be to build this...has anyone got an idea?

Also...any deck advice generally? Do's and dont's?

A point that people usually don't think about until too late...

decking has grooves in it. Have it laid so that you can sweep dirt and leaves along the grooves and off the edge, otherwise it will be very difficult to keep clean.

a lot of people are dissatisfied with their decking stains. I have been trying decking oil recently. Get a dark one as it is translucent and you will be able to see the dark patches, caused by damp, on the wood later.

Ah good point....thanks! My sister today said "Oh no don't have decking! It' terribly dangerous and my friend said hers is so dangerous they're having it pulled up."

Is that true? She said it was slippy and that it had rotted!

Ours put in by previous owners) was so slippery we had it taken up and replaced it with a patio.

We have ours done in this stuff,

www.upmprofi.com/en/Pages/default.aspx

It's made from recycled plastic, and (so far) appears to be maintenance free, doesn't fade as the colour is all the way through, isn't slippery. At the time it was what our architect suggested, but there seem to be lots of similar products on the market.