Today’s inspection showed no lag bolts attaching the deck to the rim joist. Further inspection revealed that the deck ledger board appears to be the rim joist. Is this something new? Am I missing something?
The first picture shows the deck exterior, sitting on top of a brick wall with a ledger strip that’s not properly nailed in, though I’m not sure if the “three nails per joist” rule is required since it’s sitting on a brick wall. The next picture shows the interior of the basement wall. You can see where the rim joist stops, and they’ve replaced it with a piece of thin wood stock. Is this acceptable?
The third and fourth pictures are a piece of wire I poked through an opening in the deck ledger board and it went through the plastic on the inside without hitting anything solid.
The sill plate is still in place, only the rim joist appears to have been altered. Not being familiar with this type of setup, what should I be wary of? The floor joists don’t appear to be secured to anything and the deck floor joists are anchored with one nail each into the deck ledger board. Thanks for any input!
Hey Randy, in the bottom photo are the floor joists on the inside. The gray cinder block is inside, the white brick outside. I should have mentioned that. It’s a partially covered deck. Here’s a pic of the whole deck. It stops just to the right of the picture.
Hey Robert, yeah, it was a mess. The posts aren’t secured at the top or the bottom, the ledger strip on the outside band has one nail per joist at most, the stairs are pulling away from the deck, and the rear patio is cracked and settling under a couple of posts, just to name a few.
The brick veneer cannot support any weight other than itself. So that alone is an issue. Also I don’t see any flashing to prevent water from getting under the sill plate.
Hey Randy, Thanks for pointing that out. I’ll have to keep that in mind. Regarding the flashing, they had thick black plastic between the sill plate and the brick.
