PRO Q&A
Every Deck Has Its Day Chris Wolf launched Wisconsin’s Deck Dogs LLC because more of his existing clients wanted decks. By October, he had already built 63 decks. Now Wolf is battling the labor shortage one young pup at a time.
Deck Dogs LLC Specialty: Custom deck building Founder/President: Chris Wolf Year Founded: 2009 Website: deckdogsllc.com Instagram: @deckdogsllc Facebook: Facebook.com/@deckdogsllc YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/ UCNQSKHPUQF3ddCyMBC0zfYg
Q. How did you get started in the decking
industry? A. I co-founded 2 Dogs Construction LLC in January 2009 after working for a concrete company for many years and then a construction company for a few years. 2 Dogs Construction’s business was primarily remodeling and building residential homes. After about five years, more and more clients started wanting us to build screen rooms, threeand four-season rooms, and decks. We found ourselves building more decks and screen rooms than remodels in the spring, summer, and fall months. We continued to do remodeling during the winter months.
Q. How did Deck Dogs get started? How did
you come up with the name? A. After a year of pretty much nothing but building decks as 2 Dogs Construction, LLC, we decided to create a trademark company, which then became Deck Dogs LLC to dual-brand ourselves in the construction industry. Ever since Deck Dogs LLC was established, we have been strictly building outdoor living spaces for clients. Now, we are building decks all year long with the help of great decking and railing products that allow us to install during the cold Midwest months of the year. The name was derived from our parent company, 2 Dogs Construction LLC. We wanted to keep the name sort of the same, but simple, so we decided upon Deck Dogs. The “dogs” part of each company came from myself and my oldest
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Deck Specialist
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Winter 2021
Chris Wolf
brother, Lenny Wolf. We both, at the time, each had a Great Dane puppy, hence “2 Dogs.” And the “Deck” part is self-explanatory.
Q. What makes Deck Dogs truly unique? A. We do not focus our business model on
certain sizes of decks or certain locations, within reasonable distance of our service area. We have established ourselves like a well-oiled machine from the first meeting with the client, to the install, to the finishing touches. We take pride in every job that we do, no matter the size. We also enlist the help of high school kids to work in the summer months to learn the trade and make some money for themselves. We find that not many companies like ours give high
