JLC Article About Proper Deck Ledger Attachment

[hausdok]

Kenmore, WA - August 24, 2010

This month's issue of JLC Update has a well-illustrated article by Cheryl Anderson, Frank Woeste and Joe Loferski about various ways to properly secure a deck ledger to the side of a home.

This article is a must-read for anyone in this business and the smart home inspector will keep a few copies in his vehicle for those times when powerful ammunition is needed to quickly shut down an aggressive listing agent or builder that is trying to slough off sub-standard deck building practices on your client.

[Darren]

Am I in a time warp or was this article published in 2003?

[resqman]

American Wood Associations publication of the Prescriptive Wood Deck Construction Guide is also very useful. Dont forget Appendix M of the IRC

http://www.awc.org/Publications/DCA/DCA6/DCA6-09.pdf

[hausdok]

Am I in a time warp or was this article published in 2003?

No, no time warp, that is a 2003 article. I wrote the lead-in wrong. It didn't come from this months JLC, it came from this month's JLC Update, which is their newsletter and from the part of the newsletter they call JLC Archive.

Good catch; my apologies for the error.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[msteger]

Good article. It's saved in my archives.

[RickSab]

This is an excellent article. I built decks for years and always made them self supporting. It ment more posts but I avoided penetrating the siding whenever possible. The decks were almost always a step or two below the the interior floor anyway so attaching to the band joist was not an option. We always tried to step down to avoid snow and ice buildup at the threshold.

Most of the decks I see now are homeowner built and I get a lot of pushback when I point out problems.

[Marc]

This is an excellent article. I built decks for years and always made them self supporting. It ment more posts but I avoided penetrating the siding whenever possible. The decks were almost always a step or two below the the interior floor anyway so attaching to the band joist was not an option. We always tried to step down to avoid snow and ice buildup at the threshold.

Most of the decks I see now are homeowner built and I get a lot of pushback when I point out problems.

Are you saying that your decks have no attachment whatsoever to the house? What about 2nd story decks?

Marc

[mgbinspect]

This is an excellent article. I built decks for years and always made them self supporting. It ment more posts but I avoided penetrating the siding whenever possible. The decks were almost always a step or two below the the interior floor anyway so attaching to the band joist was not an option. We always tried to step down to avoid snow and ice buildup at the threshold.

Most of the decks I see now are homeowner built and I get a lot of pushback when I point out problems.

Are you saying that your decks have no attachment whatsoever to the house? What about 2nd story decks?

Marc

Typically anything above eight feet requires diagonal bracing. It is more work and certainly some minor attachment for taller decks will always be helpful, but I'm strongly in Rick's camp and have been for years. I've seen way too many alleged properly bolted and flashed deck attachments leak anyway. The fewer penetrations into the building envelope the better.