Absolutely! Think about the loading and sheer; The deck ledger board is fastened to the floor framing rim board, hopefully with proper lag screws. Then that floor framing rim board is fastened to the cantilevered floor joists, hopefully with joist hangers. Are those joist hangers installed “up side down”? The vector force on the rim board is down in this case, so the rim board joist hangers need to be installed up side down. If any of these components are missing or improperly constructed, you have a weak link in the transfer of the load. In addition, is the floor joist sized to support not only the wall load, which includes roof weight, but also support the load of the deck. Then what happens if there is a party on the deck with lots of wild dancing?? You could easily have a load of 1000 pounds per lineal foot being supported by that rim board.
Support the deck framing bearing directly on the foundation wall with extended deck floor joists, or as mentioned, add another post and beam support on the house side of the deck joist framing.
The ledger bolts were thru bolts, threads/nuts exposed on the exterior. Which tells me this was attached to a rim band as you stated. I was able to see the floor structure in the mechanical closet…they were engineered i-joists which makes it even more interesting. Then for some additional fun, they notched the ledger board real good.
Yep, good eye! I called that out too! I always call out those louvered vents anyway because they clog like crazy. This was one of those houses that just kept on giving.
This one was barely attached to the house. The ledger was set below the band point and barely hanging on. Staircase was racked and had settled to the right. Damaged railings, etc. This is a total replacement. Recommending anything less is irresponsible.
This one was literally detaching from the house during the inspection. It had dropped hard on the left side and the lag bolts were literally pulling out of the wall right in front of me.
Significant repairs or total replacement.
I can do this all day. I have hundreds of pictures of decks like this from my inspections. I’m rewriting the deck inspection class for InterNACHI and I have done tons of research on this. Are you guys not seeing similar decks?
And to answer your previous question: there are newer decks that are built on new construction houses which follow the DCA6 requirements for ledger attachment with the additional fasteners and brackets. I don’t report anything on these if they are compliant. These would still be better with a second beam, but technically they meet the guidelines.
The way I look at it is this: if the deck has any weak points or defects which affect the ledger attachment such as: cantilevered band attachment, lack of flashing, improper bolting attachment, any signs of deterioration at the wall sheathing or rusted hangers, then that deck is at increased chance of failure at the point of attachment. The OPs deck had at least two of these plus other defects. In any of these cases, I recommend making the deck freestanding by adding a second beam structure to carry the load.
You have no idea what kind of load a buyer may put on a deck after the inspection. The only way to prevent catastrophic failure is to provide freestanding support. I’m just trying to emphasize that there are increased risks here for both buyers and inspectors and a simple way to avoid them.
Unbelievable, and no wonder they have to make standards on deck detailing. They should just disallow the homeowners and Uncles from building any type of deck and leave it to the qualified professionals.
I find that very interesting.
You and I are roughly only 100 miles apart in the same region of Minnesota.
I have the exact opposite experience from you. I rarely find ANY deck without significant concerns, and most every single one has ledger issues, usually with the attachment fasteners.
I do acknowledge that newer homes are far better than older homes in regards to the general condition of the overall deck, BUT, ledgers seem to be going in reverse with the advent of new fasteners and hardware. Contractors seem to think ‘new technology’ solves problems they don’t need to be concerned with anymore! I think what is adding to that is most homes nowadays come “deck ready”… ie. a ledger board is installed by the builder (nails only) for the homeowner to add a deck later, avoiding the extra hit to their mortgage and payments. When the deck is eventually built, the ledger attachments are rarely ever upgraded to the needs of the deck. This applies whether the homeowner or a deck builder does the work.
Interesting indeed. The most common deck issue I see by far is improper fasteners in hangers. The next would probably be shoddy guard rails. Following in 3rd place would probably be improper post connections both at the footing and at the beam.
Absolutely! I experience the same concerns here, but IMO, it all begins with the ledger. Improper ledger attachment trumps a shoddy guardrail any day. If the ledger attachment fails… nothing else matters!!
This was from yesterday… joists were cantilevered, and extended, but the deck band joist was only nailed to the posts, and wood was rotted and splitting, and steps/ landing were racked, as well as splitting.
I wrote hard on this one. That band joist is supporting half the deck.
Maybe this will work… I use spectora, so I made a pdf repair request, but then had to block out the address…
Maybe I should say I didn’t necessarily “write hard”, just probably wrote “too much” haha.
Do you like to explain every defect, or just say “numerous defects were noted, recommend evaluation, etc”…? I tend to explain things enough that clients don’t have questions. If you just say “multiple defects”, they may not take it seriously
