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Footing (or excavation), framing, and final are the common inspection stages a deck permit goes through under the Ontario Building Code's Part 9 -- confirmed directly for Niagara Falls and St. Catharines below, with Niagara-on-the-Lake following its own permit process. The exact inspections required, and their timing, are controlled by your specific permit, its approved drawings, and your municipality -- always confirm the list with your own building department rather than assuming it matches another town, or another permit type, exactly. Niagara Falls' own building department states the first one directly: the footing inspection happens prior to pouring of concrete. St. Catharines' own Guide to Residential Decks and Porches lists the identical order: before pouring concrete for piers or footings, then framing, then final. The order is the whole point. Once concrete covers a footing, or deck boards cover the frame underneath, an inspector can no longer see what is actually down there. The single most common reason a deck does not pass on the first attempt is not a design mistake. It is a timing one: pouring the footing, or decking over the frame, before the inspector has actually seen that stage. Cover it first, and the usual result is digging the footing back out, or pulling boards back up, so the inspector can verify what is underneath. Book each inspection with enough notice for your municipality (Niagara-on-the-Lake asks for at least 48 hours), and wait for the pass before moving to the next stage. Before any footing hole gets dug -- by us or by a homeowner working alone -- Ontario law requires a locate request first. Under the Ontario Underground Infrastructure Notification System Act, 2012, an "excavator" is any individual who digs, bores, or excavates, or intends to (s.1) -- there is no private-property exception, so Peter's crew carries the same duty on every dig as a homeowner would on their own property. Section 10(1) is direct: an excavator shall not commence a dig without first submitting a locate request. The request itself is free by law (s.5.1(4)), and skipping it is an offence carrying a fine of up to $10,000 (s.18). The City of Welland's own building page puts it plainly: "Before you dig, call 1-800-400-2255 or visit Ontario One Call to request utility locates" -- Ontario One Call's own site names building a fence among the jobs the request covers, and a deck footing is no different. Requests go through Ontario One Call's web portal (the phone line is 24/7 support, not the filing channel itself), and by One Call's own published process, infrastructure owners have up to 5 business days to complete the locate -- with One Call's own caveat that the 5-day window is not a guarantee. Build the locate request into your timeline before you book the footing inspection; a permit in hand does not mean a shovel in the ground that same day. What each inspection is actually checking: at footing or excavation, depth, placement, and that the footing sits on undisturbed soil, before it disappears under concrete. Ontario's Building Code does publish a real number here: Table 9.12.2.2. sets a minimum foundation depth of 1.2 m for most soils. A deck-specific exemption at 9.12.2.2.(7) removes that requirement where a deck foundation meets all five of its conditions -- not more than one storey, not more than 55 m2 in area, the underside of the joists not more than 600 mm above finished ground, not supporting a roof, and not attached to another structure. Of the four Niagara municipalities, Welland is the one that actually publishes a footing figure on its own drawings -- a poured concrete pier minimum 1200 mm below grade on undisturbed soil, matching the Code's 1.2 m exactly. Niagara Falls, St. Catharines, and Niagara-on-the-Lake do not publish a footing number, so for those three, or for any deck that does not clearly meet all five conditions of the 9.12.2.2.(7) exemption, confirm the figure that applies with your building department at permit stage (see our permit guide for what each municipality does publish). At framing, the structural connections: ledger board attachment and flashing where the deck meets the house, joist hangers, beam bearing -- and, since January 1, 2025, whether those connectors are actually rated for contact with treated wood (Article 9.23.2.4 requires stainless steel or hot-dipped, Z550-rated galvanized steel, with ASTM A153/A153M-coated fasteners attaching them) -- all of it checked before the deck boards go down and hide it for good. At final, the completed guards, railings, baluster or guard-opening spacing, and stairs, checked against your municipality's approved drawings and the current Ontario Building Code. The guard figures themselves: a guard is required wherever the walking surface is more than 600 mm above the adjacent ground (9.8.8.1.); an exterior guard serving one dwelling unit must be at least 900 mm high where that walking surface is 1 800 mm or less above grade (9.8.8.3.), and at least 1 070 mm high above that threshold -- two figures, not one, since a single blanket number is wrong for one of the two cases; openings through the guard must stop a 100 mm sphere (9.8.8.5., unamended national NBC 2020 text -- Ontario's own amendments touch 9.8.8.1., .2., .3., .6. and .7., not .5.). These figures carried over unchanged, at unchanged article numbers, when Ontario moved to a new Building Code edition on January 1, 2025. That edition is adopted by O. Reg. 163/24 s.1, but the article text itself lives in a separate document Ontario's own building-code page names, "Ontario Amendments to the National Building Code of Canada 2020" -- currently the edition dated July 17, 2026, put there by O. Reg. 242/26 -- checked directly against both the prior Code text and that document's own text, article by article, as of 2026-08-20. Ontario's own building-code page confirms the full-length Code is no longer posted on e-Laws: the ministry supplies the amendment document on email request, and its own advice for checking whether a downloaded copy is current is to read the filing date on its title page. What actually changed, and is worth confirming with your municipality: stair guards now also need their triangular openings (formed by the risers, treads, and bottom rail) to stop a 150 mm sphere (9.8.8.5.(2)). The no-climb rule for horizontal rail elements between 140 mm and 900 mm is where Ontario is stricter than the national Code text: the National Building Code's own 9.8.8.6.(1) limits that rule to guards protecting a level more than 4.2 m above the adjacent level, but Ontario's own amendments revoke that article entirely and substitute a version with no height threshold at all -- in Ontario the non-climbable requirement applies to essentially every guard a residential deck needs (any guard required under 9.8.8.1., meaning any walking surface more than 600 mm above the adjacent ground), with only two narrow exceptions (industrial occupancies; a demonstrated non-hazard case), not just the rare deck that happens to clear 4.2 m. Separate from the guard rules, a whole new article, 9.23.2.4, arrived with no predecessor in the Code at all: any connector touching treated wood -- joist hangers, post anchors, ledger bolts -- now has to be stainless steel or hot-dipped, Z550-rated (also labelled G185) galvanized steel, with ASTM A153/A153M-coated fasteners attaching it. One honest limit, carried at the grade it actually earns: the Ontario-specific amendment document the current Code adopts is still available by request only and was not retrieved directly from Ontario's own site, so that document's own provenance here is Moderate -- sourced from a third-party mirror, not independently re-fetched from e-Laws this build. The no-climb correction above is graded Strong as the operative guidance, though, independently corroborated by the City of St. Catharines' own Deck and Porch Guide, which states the identical no-height-threshold rule in its own words -- restrictions on the ability to climb, not permitted between 4 inches and 2 feet 11 inches above the walking surface -- with no 4.2 m carve-out anywhere in it. Worth confirming the 9.23.2.4 connector item with your municipality if your project sits close to its thresholds; the no-climb rule itself has no threshold to sit close to -- it applies to the guard regardless of how high the deck sits. Niagara Falls, St. Catharines, Niagara-on-the-Lake, and Welland each administer their own building department and book inspections their own way. Footing/framing/final is the common stage sequence, confirmed directly for Niagara Falls and St. Catharines above, but the exact inspections your project needs, and their order, are set by your specific permit and its approved drawings -- confirm the full list with your own municipality rather than assuming it is identical everywhere.
This page walks through the inspection sequence and what each stage checks for; it does not cover material choice. For pressure-treated versus composite decking and real Niagara $/sq ft pricing, see the decking material guide. For what each Niagara municipality's permit process itself requires (thresholds, drawings, and who to call), see the deck permit guide.
Three, under Ontario Building Code Part 9: footing (or excavation), framing, and final. This applies no matter which of the four Niagara municipalities issued your permit; it comes from the province-wide Building Code, not a municipal choice.
Timing, not design: pouring the footing concrete, or laying deck boards over the frame, before the inspector has actually seen that stage. Once it is covered, the usual fix is digging the footing back out or pulling boards back up so the inspector can verify what is underneath.
Depth, placement, and that the footing sits on undisturbed soil, before concrete is poured. Ontario's Building Code does publish a number: Table 9.12.2.2. sets 1.2 m for most soils, though a deck-specific exemption (9.12.2.2.(7)) removes that requirement for a deck that is not more than one storey, not more than 55 m2 in area, has its joists 600 mm or less above finished ground, does not support a roof, and is not attached to another structure. Welland is the one Niagara municipality that publishes a footing figure of its own -- 1200 mm, matching the Code exactly. For the other three, or for a deck that does not clearly meet the exemption, confirm the figure with your building department at permit stage.
Yes -- and this applies to homeowners and contractors alike. Under the Ontario Underground Infrastructure Notification System Act, 2012, anyone who digs is an "excavator" (s.1), with no private-property exception, and an excavator may not commence a dig without first submitting a locate request (s.10(1)). The request is free by law (s.5.1(4)); skipping it carries a fine of up to $10,000 (s.18). The City of Welland's own building page states it directly: "Before you dig, call 1-800-400-2255 or visit Ontario One Call to request utility locates" -- Ontario One Call names building a fence among the covered jobs, and a deck footing is no different. Requests go through Ontario One Call's web portal; by its own published process, infrastructure owners have up to 5 business days to complete the locate, though One Call itself states that window is not guaranteed. Build that lead time into your schedule before the footing goes in.
The structural connections: ledger board attachment and flashing where the deck meets the house, joist hangers, and beam bearing -- including, since January 1, 2025, whether those connectors are rated for contact with treated wood (stainless steel or hot-dipped, Z550-rated galvanized steel, with ASTM A153/A153M-coated fasteners, per Article 9.23.2.4). This has to happen before the deck boards go down, since they hide all of it afterward.
The completed guards, railings, baluster or guard-opening spacing, and stairs, checked against your municipality's approved drawings and the current Ontario Building Code. A guard is required above 600 mm of elevation change, must be at least 900 mm high where the walking surface is 1 800 mm or less above grade and at least 1 070 mm high above that, and openings must stop a 100 mm sphere -- all unchanged by the January 1, 2025 Building Code edition. What is worth confirming with your municipality: stair guards now also need their triangular openings to stop a 150 mm sphere. The no-climb rule for horizontal rail elements is stricter in Ontario than the national Code text: the national rule only kicks in above 4.2 m of elevation, but Ontario's own amendments remove that height threshold entirely, so the no-climb requirement applies to essentially every residential guard, not just decks over 4.2 m (independently corroborated by the City of St. Catharines' own Deck and Porch Guide, which publishes the same no-threshold rule). Separate from the guard rules, a new article (9.23.2.4) also arrived with no predecessor in the Code: any connector touching treated wood now has to be stainless steel or hot-dipped, Z550-rated galvanized steel, with ASTM A153/A153M-coated fasteners attaching it.
A guard is required wherever a deck's walking surface sits more than 600 mm above the adjacent ground. Below 1 800 mm of elevation, an exterior guard serving one dwelling unit must be at least 900 mm high; above that threshold, it must be at least 1 070 mm high -- two figures, not one blanket number, since which one applies depends on how high the deck sits (a single blanket figure is the mistake a competing St. Catharines-focused page is currently making online). Openings through the guard must stop a 100 mm sphere, and at stair guards, the triangular openings formed by the risers, treads, and bottom rail must stop a 150 mm sphere. These figures come from Ontario Building Code Part 9, Articles 9.8.8.1., 9.8.8.3., and 9.8.8.5., checked directly against the current edition -- adopted under O. Reg. 163/24, with the guard-figure text itself held in Ontario's amendment document to the National Building Code, currently the edition dated July 17, 2026 (O. Reg. 242/26) -- as of 2026-08-20.
The booking process and contact differ (see our permit guide for each municipality's phone number). Footing/framing/final is a common stage sequence under the Ontario Building Code, confirmed directly for Niagara Falls and St. Catharines, but the exact inspections and their timing are controlled by your specific permit, approved drawings, and municipality -- confirm the full list with your own building department rather than assuming it is identical to another town's or permit type's.
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