Glass House: How ProWood TrueFrame Joist Survived a Month Buried in Ice

When a backyard renovation in Sewell, New Jersey, earned a Silver award in Qualified Remodeler's 48th annual Master Design Awards, the framing underneath the finished deck did as much work as anything visible from the outside.

A build interrupted by winter

The project, called Glass House, transformed an aging 400-square-foot deck into a 713-square-foot outdoor retreat, anchored by a covered bar and lounge pavilion, a paver patio, a koi pond, and a separate fire pit lounge area. Built by Sean Collinsgru of Premier Outdoor Living, construction started in November 2025 and was supposed to wrap up well before the new year. Instead, an unusually harsh New Jersey winter got in the way. A major snowstorm followed by heavy sleet buried the job site under a foot of snow encased in ice, and the ice stuck around for nearly a month, long enough that it wasn't safe to work on site at all. The project didn't finish until March 2026.

Framing that held its shape

That kind of delay is exactly the scenario ProWood TrueFrame™ Joist is built for. Engineered to resist warping, twisting, and bowing, the joists held their shape through weeks of snow, ice, and the freeze-thaw cycles that come with a New Jersey winter. When the crew was finally able to get back on site, they were working on a substructure that was just as sound and level as the day they left it. No rework, no re-leveling, no adjustments needed to account for weather exposure. They picked up the build right where they'd stopped.

Built to pair with the deck above

A stable frame only matters if what's on top of it holds up too. Glass House paired TrueFrame Joist with Deckorators Voyage decking featuring Surestone^® technology, which brings its own minimal thermal movement to the equation. Together, the full system performed reliably across a wide swing in temperature and weather, from a hard freeze straight through to the spring finish.

A lesson for builders in any climate

Weather delays are part of the job, especially for projects that run through the winter months. Glass House is a good reminder that the framing choices made early in a build can determine how much a delay actually costs a project, in time, in rework, and in quality. A substructure that stays dimensionally consistent through freeze-thaw conditions means a crew can walk away from a job site for weeks and come back to exactly what they left.

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